"No, not necessarily yet!"
The next moment, Youshen caught his breath, staring at the "first spirit ring" reward with a pensive expression.
Aside from the possibility that this reward was useless, Youshen considered two other possibilities.
First, this spirit ring would replace his original first spirit ring.
Second, this spirit ring would stack with his existing first spirit ring, adding their ages together to form a new spirit ring.
Thinking of this possibility, Youshen's spirits suddenly surged. After waking Ye Han up and safely returning him, he hurried back to his residence in Spirit City.
When his mind touched the spirit ring within his inventory, his eyes instantly lit up.
"It's reacting!"
Youshen's heart pounded with excitement. Amidst his thoughts, a fierce expression suddenly flashed across his face.
Youshen was no longer the novice of twenty-three years ago who possessed only a superficial understanding of spirit theory.
Normally, a spirit master could only absorb a spirit ring when they reached a bottleneck and had not yet absorbed one.
Otherwise, it was completely impossible to draw upon a spirit ring, let alone absorb it.
Even in the exceptional case of Twin Martial Souls, the practitioner actually just had reserved spirit ring slots available, which allowed them to draw upon a spirit ring.
Such were the rules of this world and heaven!
Yet at this very moment, a prompt reading "Use or not" appeared over the spirit ring in his inventory...
A thrill of apprehension ran through Youshen.
Regardless of whether this was a bug caused by the system's delay or something else entirely, did this mean that, just as Youshen had guessed, the system's rules surpassed those of the Douluo Continent!?
"No, it's too early to celebrate."
Youshen forced himself to calm down. This was merely a single possibility.
If the system's rules truly transcended the Douluo Continent, it might indeed be possible to forcefully absorb this spirit ring.
However, even if he managed to cross this first threshold and absorb this first spirit ring when he already possessed one, how could there be no risk?
Not to mention the two possibilities Youshen hoped for, even if he drew upon the spirit ring only to find it completely unabsorbable, causing the spirit ring to violently eject from his body in failure—that would actually be a relatively favorable outcome.
Who's to say it wouldn't result in a spirit ring conflict causing his body to explode and kill him? That was a highly probable scenario!
Though he spoke of wanting to break away from Spirit Hall and live in seclusion, Youshen was by no means an obedient or law-abiding person.
On the contrary, Youshen possessed fierce ambition! Had it not been for that, even knowing that Yu Xiaogang was all show and no substance, why would he have taken the risk of offending Bibi Dong to expose him? Just becoming a regular spirit master would have already been enough for him to indulge in pleasure!
Food, clothing, shelter, and transportation had long since ceased to be concerns, but in the Douluo Continent, those material needs failed to reflect the true gap between people.
Perhaps female beauty was a more direct measure.
A class beauty or campus belle was merely a beauty selected out of one in a hundred, one in a thousand, or at most one in ten thousand.
Yet across the entire Douluo Continent, with a population of hundreds of millions, there were only around a hundred thousand spirit masters! Anyone who became a spirit master was a rare existence picked from thousands.
Essentially, traveling through Douluo meant that as long as you had the talent to break level 10 and become a spirit master, you practically secured the status and position of being above ordinary people right from the start.
Every male spirit master, no matter how hideous his appearance or how unappealing his physique and personality, was still treated as an absolute catch in the eyes of commoners.
Didn't they see how even Ma Hongjun, with his looks, his physique, and his temperament, still managed to win the affection of commoner girls?
Time travelers in Douluo fanfictions didn't even need to work hard; with just a shred of discernment, they could easily win the favor of campus-belle-level beauties that were completely out of reach in their past lives.Those goddesses whom they used to fawn over eagerly, only to be kicked away, now went out of their way to curry favor with them. In the past, they could only watch helplessly as the campus belles and beauties were easily plucked by men from who-knows-where, consumed by envy, jealousy, and bitterness while stubbornly claiming that these guys were just handsome, had a bit of money, and possessed slick tongues, and that they were actually scumbags who changed women like clothes. Meanwhile, good, wholesome men like them could only watch with red eyes and quietly abuse tissue paper.
Yet now, they could easily become the very "scumbags" they once envied.
Not because of any hard work on their part, but simply because they had awakened martial souls and possessed Innate Spirit Power.
Coupled with the fact that it was infinitely easier for spirit masters to earn wealth compared to commoners, every single one of these fanfiction protagonists—even if they didn't follow the struggle routines of the original stories—was a winner in life compared to who they were before crossing over.
Youshen had been utterly ordinary in appearance, but after the age of nine, he was already considered a genuine little genius in the eyes of others. Breaking through to a Great Spirit Master at age fifteen and possessing a thousand-year second ring made him utterly unrivaled for a time.
Everything that could be experienced naturally had been experienced once the time was ripe.
After all, in the past, he had merely been an ordinary wage slave, completely insulated from things like romance and the mating dance. Now that he had finally crossed over to become one of the masters of society, it was impossible for him to stick rigidly to old conventions and act like Liu Xiahui. Yet, after being pursued and flattered by the beauties he used to drool over, Youshen quickly sobered up.
He even found himself resonating with those old fellows in the Elder Hall who remained single their entire lives.
So what if ordinary commoner beauties were pretty? Mingling with spirit masters, they naturally felt a congenital sense of inferiority. Without spiritual equality, there could be no talk of true romance at all.
Spirit masters mostly associated and reproduced with other spirit masters not just to produce spirit master offspring, but because true equality could only exist between spirit masters of comparable strength.
Without an emotional bond, relying solely on carnal desire, such false love was destined not to last.
That was why these Title Douluo of the Elder Hall often remained single because they never met the right person at the appropriate age, and instead began pursuing the sublimation of individual might.
Perhaps Youshen was fundamentally that kind of person as well.
He hadn't indulged in romantic entanglements for long before quickly shifting his focus back toward breaking his own limits and shattering the shackles of his original talent.
In his past life, he had lacked channels and opportunities; no matter how hard he tried, he remained nothing more than an overworked corporate drone. But in this lifetime, the chance to seize his destiny was in his own hands, and he would naturally fight tooth and nail to grasp that opportunity!
He firmly believed that within power lay the greatest freedom in this world.
Even among ambitious people, the majority only gambled with what they already possessed.
Risking one's entire net worth to invest and start a business required a courage that surpassed ninety-nine percent of people.
Yet to gamble with one's own safety and life...
How could someone who did this lack ambition or courage!?
Even knowing he might displease that crazy bitch Bibi Dong, hadn't he still marched right up and done it that day!
Now, this chance to defy the heavens and change his fate had arrived before him; would he give it up? Could he give it up? No! Absolutely not!
He was already thirty-five years old this year! His physical vitality and blood were beginning to gradually decline! His cultivation speed was starting to drop!
If he could absorb this adaptive spirit ring, he would break straight through to level 50. Then, by absorbing a fifth spirit ring—two ten-thousand-year spirit rings—his martial soul might just evolve once more!
Evolving into an advanced-grade spirit! An advanced-grade spirit, coupled with two ten-thousand-year spirit rings, meant he could definitely rival those six-ring Spirit Emperors! More importantly, his cultivation speed would increase drastically, giving him a genuine hope of breaking through to become a Spirit Saint before the age of fifty!
Then there would be hope of breaking through to Title Douluo, borrowing a few hundred more years from the heavens!
"Spirit Avatar Integration!"
A cyan dragon-shaped phantom attached itself to him.
Youshen hesitated no longer and used the spirit ring.
Boundless spirit power began to surge.