A transparent spirit ring hovered and manifested around Youshen.
"Success! It has to succeed! First spirit ring, let me absorb you!"
Amid Youshen's mental roar, the spirit ring rapidly contracted and merged into his body.
Joy instantly flashed across Youshen's face.
It worked! It really worked! He had actually begun the absorption smoothly!
Even though years of theoretical research had given him a deeper understanding of the fundamental rules of this world and allowed him to guess at this possibility, Youshen still could not help but feel excited.
To clear his mind of distractions, Youshen immediately closed his eyes and began absorbing the spirit ring with all his might.
While absorbing the spirit ring, Youshen continuously drove his Soul Power, as if intentionally shaping a Spirit Ability—a Spirit Ability that best matched the capabilities of the "Stardust Dragon"!
Spirit Abilities born after absorbing a spirit ring generally fall into two categories: one develops the spirit's innate abilities (potentially producing a skill entirely unrelated to the absorbed spirit beast's spirit ring), while the other relates to abilities associated with the spirit beast that produced the ring (which may have nothing to do with the spirit itself, such as a blade of grass developing time-stop abilities).
There are only these two tendencies, differing only in degree.
However, the proactive initiative and individual will of the Spirit Master are by no means without influence.
*Memes and Genes*, a book he published at the age of twenty-five, verified the effect of human spiritual will on spirits and Spirit Abilities.
This was verified on himself once again when he acquired his fourth spirit ring at the age of twenty-eight.
This did not mean that "you get whatever Spirit Ability you want." As one could imagine, acquiring a Spirit Ability is not a purely idealistic process.
Constrained by the spirit beast chosen by the Spirit Master, the closer it is to the spirit's source power, the easier it is to develop the spirit's innate abilities; whatever is mismatched or poorly digested naturally becomes "loss."
This pure first spirit ring, which contained no power from any spirit beast, was equivalent to a blank sheet of paper, allowing him to freely draw upon it with the Spirit Master's will!
Developing the innate abilities of the spirit and constructing a Spirit Ability that matched the spirit was undoubtedly the choice that maximized the use of the spirit ring's energy to evolve the spirit!
Just like Youshen now, it was equivalent to looking at the reference answers in advance, sketching out the abilities of the spirit after its evolution, and then guiding the spirit to evolve!
When he first arrived in this world, Youshen had somewhat blindly believed in the concept of "absorbing spirit rings beyond the age limit."
He had seen this progression in numerous fanfiction novels: a protagonist with mediocre aptitude absorbs a spirit ring from a suitable spirit beast beyond the age limit, allowing the spirit to break through its shackles and instantly evolve from a piece-trash spirit into an all-powerful powerhouse.
Yet a little careful thought revealed that this was full of loopholes.
Could families and sects whose spirits had been passed down through generations possibly pick spirit beasts worse than what he could figure out through individual research? Look at Bibi Dong and Tang San—their second spirits exceeded the optimal age limits by far more than a century or a millennium. If it were truly that overpowered... then the strength of both Tang San's and Bibi Dong's second spirits should easily have reached the divine level.
In reality, the combined age gap between Bibi Dong's two spirit rings was at least hundreds of thousands of years, yet there was no qualitative gap in the quality of their spirits.
When Tang San first started cultivating Blue Silver Grass, he also absorbed a ring by breaking limits, yet it did not even cause the Blue Silver Grass to prematurely reveal partial characteristics of the Blue Silver Emperor.
Breaking limits to absorb spirit rings... why does absorbing spirit rings beyond conventional limits allow a spirit to evolve? Pain and squeezing out potential to gain evolution? But conversely, wouldn't an evolution as smooth and natural as Pokémon evolution—not only painless but also comfortable and refreshing—seem more reasonable? Simply equating absorbing spirit rings beyond the age limit with spirit evolution was obviously a bit presumptive.
Once he broke through this cognitive barrier, Youshen quickly figured this out.
To find out the true reason behind this, Youshen began in-depth research. Backed by Spirit Hall's knowledge reserves, he quickly ascertained one thing.
First of all, absorbing spirit rings beyond limits could indeed improve and even evolve spirit quality, but in this realistic Douluo Continent, it was by no means as miraculous as depicted in fanfiction novels.
If an intermediate-grade spirit could evolve with just a single spirit ring, so be it, but to reach the top tier in two or three rings, with Spirit Kings, Spirit Emperors, or even Spirit Saints elevating a trash spirit to the strength of a Super Spirit?
Were those great families with heritages lasting hundreds or thousands of years just freeloading?
For the vast majority of people in this world, spirit evolution is a persistent, gradual process that requires the efforts of countless generations.
Take Youshen as an example: normally, after relying on Whale Glue and exceeding the age limits for his second, third, and fourth rings to break through his original innate shackles, if he continued to cultivate step-by-step, he might hope to reach the rank of Spirit Emperor by the end of his life's hard cultivation, evolving his original intermediate-grade spirit into an advanced-grade spirit.
If he then married and had children, the probability of his descendants inheriting an advanced-grade spirit would be greatly increased.
Generation after generation, passed down for ten thousand years like this, a new, natural top-tier spirit might truly be born.
Youshen could not be certain about other spirits, but his "Stardust Wyrm" spirit definitely possessed such potential! Because after absorbing his fourth spirit ring and causing the spirit to evolve, Youshen had already realized that the true face of his spirit was never some fledgling dragon of the wind to begin with! It was "Stardust Dragon," the ace monster of Yusei Fudo, the protagonist of *Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's*! It was only because of his insufficient aptitude that his innate spirit was defective, causing it to degenerate into this appearance.
At that time, he had been multitasking—watching *Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's* for the fourth time on his computer while reading Douluo fanfiction on his phone—and inexplicably time-traveled here.
He had thought this transmigration was only related to him reading Douluo fanfiction, but it turned out Yu-Gi-Oh! hadn't escaped either! After the spirit's first evolution, Youshen felt a trace of regret.
If he had known the truth about his spirit sooner, his choice of spirit rings could naturally have leaned closer toward perfection; perhaps his third spirit ring would have given him hope of completing the spirit's first evolution, granting him more opportunities and possibilities to complete the next evolution.
But it was definitely not too late now.
Now he had another chance!
This brought him back to Youshen's research on spirit rings and spirit evolution.
Through observation and research, Youshen discovered that aside from the seventh ring, which is uniquely fixed as the Martial Soul True Body Spirit Ability, when it comes to the efficiency of evolution driven by a Spirit Master absorbing spirit rings, the first three rings far surpassed the later ones!
Absorbing an optimally matched four-hundred-year spirit ring for the first ring brought an evolution to the spirit that was by no means inferior to absorbing an ordinary ten-thousand-year spirit ring for a Spirit King's fifth ring! Just like heavenly treasures in the original work, the earlier they were absorbed, the better—all of this pointed to one word: early.
With this inspiration and enlightenment, Youshen began his research along this path.
What exactly influenced the spirit evolution brought about by absorbing spirit rings? Youthfulness of blood and vital energy? The number of existing spirit rings? Soul Power, physical fitness, Spiritual Power? The matching degree between the acquired Spirit Ability and the spirit?……
Over twenty years, amid the passage of time, relying on his astonishing wisdom, he finally obtained an answer!
An answer that could not be called absolutely correct, and although vague, was still sufficient to let him see the road ahead clearly.
Was blood and vital energy a constraint? Correct!
Were spirit rings and Soul Power a constraint? Correct! Was the matching degree of the spirit rings a constraint? Correct!
Ultimately, the evolution of a spirit is essentially a mutation caused by the enhancement of the spirit's source power.