Douluo Dalu - The Story of Sheng Feilong 191 Six Months Later

By the time they split up and Sheng Feilong was able to return to his room, it was already late into the night. With no more time, he opted to directly go to bed; He simply didn't dare to remain awake for too long, especially since they would enter another, more dangerous part of the Spirit Ascension Platform tomorrow.

The next few days went by fast. With Yuanen Yehui having gained more confidence in her own strength, their teams cooperation and combat standards increased explosively; With each passing day, each of them become more content and accustomed to their respective role.

The day after having talked about creating Two Word Battle Armour amongst themselves, Sheng Feilong informed Song Weihan and She Meixiao about their decision. With their plans coming together quite well, Song Weihan cut their training down by quite a notch, allowing them to use most of their time to further their work, other than going to the Spirit ascension Platform.

Huang Jialong asked for She Meixiao assistance with the most crucial part for his own Battle Armour – The Selection of the right Spirit Alloy to reforge his Battle Armour with, as well as choosing a Blacksmith who would provide this metal. He insisted on using his own merit points to pay for the metal, thus turning down She Meixiao's offer to have Old Tang create the metal.

After a while of discussions as well as asking a few blacksmiths for their opinions, Huang Jialong decided for one of the Saint Blacksmiths, who's prowess was only below Old Tang, though much more affordable. With She Meixiao backing Huang Jialong up, the blacksmith even gave him a great discount.

Huang Jialong spent quite a long time with the blacksmith, to get to know him better and to be able to wholly entrust his Battle Armour to the latter. With it being made from an inferior metal than the one they decided to use, the whole One Word Battle Armour had to be reforged to make it into a Two Word Battle Armour.

This process had to be done by a blacksmith, who would use the old Battle Armour as the base to create the new one. Not only did this require a great deal of skill; It also required a great amount of trust. A Battle Armour master's Battle Armour, even if just a one word variant, was considered their second life.

Letting someone repair the armour was one thing, but for the whole armour to be reforged; None dared to hand it to someone they don't wholeheartedly trust; It meant that Huang Jialong would expose of all his Battle Armour's secrets to the blacksmith, something that, if the two of them ever became enemies, would be Huang Jialong's demise.

For the next few weeks, as soon as their joint training in the Spirit Ascension Platform ended, Huang Jialong would be at the blacksmith's workshop, nowhere to be seen otherwise. Sheng Feilong and Yuanen Yehui didn't question him, trusting his decision and waiting for him to tell them about the completed reforging.

Another few days later, Huang Jialong informed them of the successful reforging process, asking for Sheng Felong's help to recreate his Battle Armour and elevate it to a two word variant. Afterwards, Sheng Feilong began working on the Two Word Battle Armour according to Huang Jialong's blueprint, while the latter concentrated on the blueprint for Sheng Feilong's Two Word Battle Armour.

As the one who originally designed Sheng Feilong's Battle Armour was even more skilled then he was, he regularly went to ask the senior for advice. Eventually, he completed the design, much to the satisfaction of the senior Mecha Designer, after which he corrected a few details together with Sheng Feilong.

Over three months, halve the set time their were allowed to spent in the Spirit Ascension Platform, had passed by now and Sheng Feilong had managed to reach the first half of the goal Song Weihan set for him; His Ancient Hypnotic Toad Spirit Soul had reached a cultivation of 14.800-years-old.

The reason this took him so long was that the rate of improvement dropped significantly after the Ancient Hypnotic Toad reached 10.000 years of age; Absorbing the remnant energy of 1.000-years-old Soul Beasts only netted him an increase in the Spirit Souls cultivation of less that 20 percent of what it used to be, despite absorbing the same amount of energy.

He had asked Song Weihan about this, as Huang Jialong and Yuanen Yehui were also oblivious to the answer, but were struck with the same problem. The only answer they received was an incentive to hunt 10.000-years-old Soul Beast from a smiling Song Weihan.

Still, this proved to be less of a problem then expected. With all three of them having advanced all of their Soul Rings to the 10.000-years-old level, their Soul Skills evolved as well, to a level where their strength was incomparable to before. This was especially true for Sheng Feilong's illusion abilities as the Ancient Hypnotic Toad's strength mainly came from its age.

With the usage of the same strength of Spirit power, his illusions' strength increased by more than fivefold, enabling him to trap even 10.000-years-old Soul Beasts in his illusions without much trouble. Still, with the slowed down increase in strength, the time it took him to advance it to the level Song Weihan required was even longer than the time it took to advance it to the 10.000-years-old boundary, despite hunting 10.000-years-old Soul beasts most of the time.

Yuanen Yehui and Huang Jialong faced the same problem, though still managed to reach the first of two goals Song Weihan set for them by roughly the same time as Sheng Feilong. Still, this left them even more distressed. All of them possessed another Spirit Soul that was already at the 10.000-years-old boundary to begin with, yet they had to advance it by leaps and bounds with only half of the initial time remaining.

Thankfully, as Sheng Feilong and Huang Jialong finished their Two Word Battle Armours in time, their team's strength experienced another huge jump, which caused them to be able to hunt even mid ranked 10.000-years-old Beasts with only a moderate amount of trouble.

There was only a single time where they completely failed a hunt, causing Huang Jialong to be killed inside the Spirit Ascension Platform, while Sheng Feilong and Yuanen Yehui had to flee for their lives before bailing out in a last ditch effort.

That day, they had encountered one of the Guardians of the Spirit Ascension Platfform – an over 15.000-years-old Soul Beast recreated from the Soul Bone of a real Molten Earth Armadillo. They invaded its territory without noticing it and stepped into one of its traps, notifying the beast of their arrival.

Afterwards, they were ambushed from beneath the ground, causing great injuries to Huang Jialong before he finally fell after a few minutes of intense combat. Sheng Feilong and Yuanen Yehui managed to flee out of its territory, but with the Soul Beastsof the nearby territories being much weaker, the Molten Earth Armadillo continued to pursue them without rest, forcing them to bail out.

This was the first time Sheng Feilong and the others become truly aware of the danger inside the simulated Great Star Dou Forest, leading to them being much more careful afterwards.

During the following, last three months, Sheng Feilong, Huang Jialong and Yuanen Yehui fully concentrated on their training inside the Spirit Ascension Platform, only cultivating in the evening after their usual training was over.

By the time the six months deadline was over, all of their strengths had increased by leaps and bounds while their cultivation level remained roughly the same; Sheng Feilong managed to break through to rank 62, taking a whole six months just to advance a single rank. However, his Spirit Souls had gone through a major evolution; The Ancient Hypnotic Toad had reached an age of 14.880 years, while the Purple Forest Witch exceeded Song Weihan's goal, becoming a staggering 29.000-years-old Spirit Soul.

Huang Jialong's Spirit Souls went through similar changes; His first Spirit Soul, the Ironhide Flood Dragon, reaching an age of 10.990 years, becoming a 10.000-years-old Spirit Soul as well, while his Coiled Blackblooded Snake Spirit Soul evolved into a 20.700-years-old Spirit Soul. His own cultivation level also only increased lightly, reaching rank 64 after their training.

Compared to them, Yuanen Yehui made the greatest improvements; After becoming a Battle Armour master, she trained her fighting techniques according to Song weihan's training regime, reaching a level of hand-to-hand combat similar to Sheng Feilong, while her cultivation increased from rank 52 to 55 – a total of three ranks.

Her Spirit Souls were the weakest to begin with, reaching a little over 2.000-years-old and 3.000-years-old, respectively. By now, both of those becoming 10.000-years-old Spirit Souls, the Diamond Baboon Spirit Soul even becoming 16.500-years-old.

All of them met – and partially exceeded – the goals Song Weihan had set for them. Moreover, with the addition to their new Battle Armours, familiarity to act like a team and individual fighting capabilities, Song Weihan and She Meixiao were more than pleased with them.

The six of them, including Sheng Lingtian, met in Song Weihan's office, exactly six months after their training first began. Sheng Feilong, Huang Jialong and Yuanen Yehui stood in front of the seated She Meixiao and Song Weihan, visibly relaxed and confident in their strength, while the two Titled Douluo's smiled at them. "Congratulations, you three. With this, your training has concluded."

Song Weihan chimed in after She Meixao congratulated them, his tone equally stern as it was proud. "The three of you have exceeded my expectations, all things concerned. When I created the training plans for you, I thought the Spirit Soul's ages were the maximum you would be able to achieve, yet in a short six months you became able to exceed this limit."

He paused a moment and looked at the three of them. "Two Soul Emperor ranked Soul Master with full sets of Two Word Battle Armour and a Soul King ranked Soul Master with a One Word Battle Armour; All of which possess full sets of black, 10.000-years-old Soul Rings. With this, you a ready to head for the real Great Star Dou Forest."

Chapter end