Douluo: Lord of Arms

Chapter 37 Hunting 2

After bidding farewell to Tang Wulin and Xie Xie, Lin Xingyu once again embarked on his "Old Six"-style hunting adventure. Not long after wandering through the mysterious forest of Shenglingtai, he keenly detected the traces of a special prey.

The life-like magnetic field there was extremely similar, and based on experience, it was likely the territory of a gregarious spirit beast. He used the magnetic field to carefully sense it several times and found that the spirit beasts showed no signs of moving. Lin Xingyu was delighted and guessed that this was likely the habitat of a plant-based spirit beast.

"Let's do it!" Lin Xingyu muttered to himself, his eyes gleaming with excitement. If he encountered an animal-type soul beast, he would have to weigh the pros and cons, considering whether to risk attacking. But if it was a plant-type soul beast, there was no hesitation. The strongest soul beasts on the primary soul raising platform were only thousand-year-old soul beasts, and thousand-year-old plant-type soul beasts were immobile, making them the perfect "soft persimmon" in his eyes.

The safety factor in fighting against plant-type soul beasts is extremely high. After all, even if he cannot defeat them, with his skills, it is not difficult for him to escape unscathed. He simply relies on the fact that the other party cannot move to "bully" them.

Lin Xingyu approached the gathering place of soul beasts cautiously. After a while, he saw more than a dozen eyes split open on a big tree. He immediately recognized that it was a gregarious and carnivorous plant-type soul beast - the Scarlet Demon Tree. No wonder there were no traces of other soul beasts nearby.

He channeled his soul power, and the elemental forces around him surged and converged. In the blink of an eye, a glazed fireball condensed beside him. With a single thought, the fireball smashed precisely into the scarlet demon tree. A violent explosion occurred instantly, the impact shaking the air and the flames scattering like a ferocious beast.

Sparks splashed onto nearby trees and the fire spread rapidly. In the blink of an eye, the sea of ​​​​inferno was raging, thick smoke was billowing, and the pungent smell of burning was everywhere.

The noise startled the surrounding scarlet demon trees, and they all opened their blood-red eyes with a cold gaze. Then, rays of light shot out from their eyes at high speed, completely enveloping the area around Lin Xingyu.

Lin Xingyu smiled secretly in his heart, his body moved like lightning, he retreated in an instant, and in the blink of an eye he escaped from the coverage of the scarlet magic tree's rays, distanced himself from these soul beasts, and started to pull them.

The Glazed True Fire was like a series of nimble and deadly fire snakes. As soon as it touched the rough bark of the Scarlet Demon Tree, it spread wildly like a prairie fire. Everyone knows that among the five elements, fire overcomes wood. The Glazed True Fire controlled by Lin Xingyu was a superior fire, incomparable to ordinary flames.

This Glazed True Fire was incredibly powerful. Once it attached itself to a target, it clung to it like a maggot, clinging to it like a thorn in its tarsal bones. Its stickiness was unimaginable. Even more terrifying, it could transform the opponent's vitality into fuel, raging ever more fiercely, forcing the Scarlet Demon Tree into a desperate situation.

The Scarlet Demonic Tree twisted its branches frantically, attempting to escape the grip of the Glazed True Fire, but it was all in vain. The flames seemed to possess a consciousness of their own, clinging to the trunk and devouring the tree's vitality. In the blink of an eye, the bark was reduced to charcoal, peeling off in large flakes. A strong smell of burning and billowing smoke quickly filled the entire space.

Fortunately, the rules of the Spirit Ascension Platform are only about protecting the environment and will not prevent the flames from burning on the Scarlet Demon Tree, which allows Lin Xingyu's "setting fire to the mountain" plan to be successfully completed.

As the flames gradually died down, only three age-old survivors remained from the once densely packed scarlet demon trees. While fire overcomes wood, the difference in soul power was not negligible. Lin Xingyu naturally wouldn't let this last "slippery fish" slip away. He quickly stepped forward, condensing several fireballs and accurately smashing them into the three scarlet demon trees. After two rounds of pulling attacks, he finally succeeded in wiping out all the scarlet demon trees in the area.

As the scarlet demon trees fell, rays of light emanated from their corpses, rapidly converging towards Lin Xingyu. In the blink of an eye, all of this light merged into Aya's body. Looking back on this battle, Lin Xingyu felt a surge of joy. This battle was arguably the easiest one he had ever had since entering the Spirit Ascension Platform. It was a painless struggle, yet the rewards far exceeded all his previous efforts. It was truly a pleasant surprise.

……

After a half-hour break, Lin Xingyu set his sights on a small herd of spirit beasts. This time, his target was the Golden-backed Spirit Wolf, a common gregarious spirit beast found in the Spirit Ascension Platform. A single Golden-backed Spirit Wolf might only have thirty or forty years of cultivation, but they often appeared in packs of thirty or more.

The reason why Lin Xingyu specifically targeted this type of social soul beasts was because he found that with his abilities, fighting them was both convenient and safe, with high returns and low energy consumption.

He raised his hand and unleashed a wave of fire, instantly scattering the group of soul beasts. He then rushed forward to finish them off. These low-level soul beasts had no way of breaking through Lin Xingyu's defenses. With his armor on, he felt completely secure. Now he finally understood why ancient dynasties made the possession of armor a capital offense.

Often after a battle, Lin Xingyu would not have even a scratch on his body except for the loss of his soul power...

The battle between Lin Xingyu and the golden-backed wolves was a one-sided crushing defeat. His ability was a natural nemesis for this pack of wolves, and the fight was extremely exhilarating.

In just five minutes, he had slain all twenty-three golden-backed spirit wolves. By the end of the battle, Lin Xingyu hadn't sustained a single scratch, and the soul energy he'd harvested was nearly two-thirds of what it would take to kill a thousand-year-old spirit beast. This trip was truly worth it!
When a soul beast reaches the thousand-year mark, just like a soul master reaching the Soul Master level, it undergoes a comprehensive qualitative transformation, its abilities dramatically increasing, and it becomes extremely difficult to deal with. Just as soul masters undergo qualitative transformations at levels 10, 30, 50, 70, and 90, soul beasts undergo transformations at the thousand-year mark, the ten-thousand-year mark, the fifty-thousand-year mark, and the hundred-thousand-year mark. This explains Xie Xie's amusement when he mentioned defeating the Millennium Crystal Bear.

After the battle, Lin Xingyu began to review the situation. He carefully recalled the details of the battle and accurately calculated the soul power consumption. He found that he could have used less soul power, allowing the Glazed True Fire to cover more soul beasts and cause greater damage.

……

Inside the Spirit Ascension Platform, Lin Xingyu went into a frenzied hunting mode. He averaged a battle every half hour, and each one was swiftly resolved. Each battle yielded spiritual energy, a killing habit that only grew stronger with each battle.

After nearly four hours on the Spirit Ascension Platform, he had gained approximately five hundred years of spiritual power. As a second-ring Great Spirit Master, his first soul had two spirit rings, which could add approximately two hundred and fifty years to his soul.

This achievement in just four hours was something many spirit masters wouldn't dare to dream of. Normal spirit masters who entered the Spirit Ascension Platform would struggle to find spirit beasts, let alone hunt them, and most would end up being hunted down by spirit beasts.

Only large families could achieve such efficiency when helping their younger generations improve their spirit ring ages, like in the original novel, when Wu Zhangkong led Tang Wulin to the Intermediate Spirit Ascension Platform, rapidly raising his spirit rings to the millennium level. Now, Lin Xingyu could clearly feel the improvement in his spirit Aya, and the performance of his Glazed True Fire was gradually increasing. Constant battles were simply exhilarating!
(End of this chapter)