Chapter 62: Crossing the River by Feeling Dugu Bo

Dugu Bo's breakthrough was a matter of course.

Dugu Bo possessed considerable innate talent. At the time of his awakening, he possessed full innate soul power, and his cultivation speed was remarkably fast. Later on, his cultivation progress was dragged down because of the venom within him.

It was only after finding the Land of the Ice and Fire Yin-Yang Well to suppress the poison in his body that he could barely continue his cultivation, eventually and obscurely becoming a Titled Douro.

Had it not been for the interference of this intrinsic, core-level lethal poison, the time it took for Dugu Bo to become a Titled Douro could have been much earlier, and his strength would have been somewhat greater.

No matter how one looked at it, he shouldn't have been stuck at level 91—an awkward rank for a Titled Douro—for several decades.

While the intrinsic lethal poison did have some benefits for Dugu Bo, those benefits were negligible compared to the drawbacks.

This poison had fused with Dugu Bo's vitality and soul power, forming an extremely crucial part of him; losing it completely would mean death. Yet, the problem was that even without losing this part, this uncontrollable venom was constantly dragging Dugu Bo toward death.

Under normal circumstances, Dugu Bo was not only completely unable to use this power within him, but he also had to divide his focus to actively suppress it. If he could manage to use seventy or eighty percent of his full soul power in battle, it was already considered quite good.

To Dugu Bo, it was an entirely negative effect.

Just as negative assets are technically still assets in economics, in reality, the vast majority of negative assets are purely detrimental, and only a tiny minority of people's negative assets can truly be considered real assets.

Dugu Bo's venom belonged to the category of severely impaired assets: throwing it away would cause bankruptcy, yet keeping it in hand meant slow bankruptcy. Its theoretical value was very high, but in reality, not a single bit of it could be cashed out.

Chen Ming purified a portion of the poison inside Dugu Bo, reverting it into soul power and vitality. In reality, this transformed the impaired assets stuck in his hands into normal, usable wealth for Dugu Bo.

With gains offsetting losses, the effect was quite remarkable.

The vitality and soul power that had been hidden within the poison for many years were re-converted and injected back into Dugu Bo by Chen Ming, rapidly restoring his previously poor physical condition and elevating him to a higher level.

Furthermore, because a portion of the poison was purified by Chen Ming, the remaining venom was forced into a more dormant state under Dugu Bo's suppression, rendering it completely incapable of causing any impact on him for the time being.

Relieved of the burden on his body, Dugu Bo didn't even need to consciously push forward; he was directly nudged past the bottleneck that had plagued him for many years, naturally becoming a ninety-second-rank Titled Douro.

Moreover, he did not feel like someone who had just broken through to the ninety-second rank. If converted into an experience bar, Dugu Bo's experience bar from level 92 to 93 was now filled by at least sixty percent or more.

If he cultivated normally, without considering the enhancements of the Ice and Fire Yin-Yang Well and the reductions from the poison, Dugu Bo would likely break through to level 93 within a decade, and becoming a level 94 Titled Douro in this lifetime would pose no major problem.

As for level 95...

A level 95 Super Douro tested not only one's talent in soul power but also one's abstract comprehension abilities. Dugu Bo's talent in soul power was certainly passing, and he wasn't a fool. However, when it came to comprehension, he lacked a certain degree of talent.

Feeling his body as light as if he had shed a dozen years of age, Dugu Bo hurriedly turned his head to check if anything had happened to Chen Ming.

He had already made up his mind: if his granddaughter truly looked down upon Chen Ming, or if Chen Ming looked down upon his granddaughter, he would simply drop the idea of taking him as a disciple and instead swear oaths with him to become sworn brothers of different surnames.

Compared to Chen Ming, Dugu Bo felt as though he merely had a pig's head atop his neck.

He had spent decades bustling about trying to detoxify himself, only to realize in the end that he didn't even understand the true essence of his own poison. His actions were utterly unworthy of the moniker Poison Douro.

Dugu Bo thought to himself, having been called the Poison Douro for so many years, he had completely forgotten the fact that the title he received when crowned at the Spirit Hall back then was not Poison, but the Jade Phosphorus.

He looked up and down at Chen Ming, who was plunged into deep meditation, and sensed that Chen Ming's soul power and spiritual power were in an extremely abundant state. His martial soul was even stronger than before, clearly having leveraged that exact opportunity to break through to the level of the Scorpion Emperor. This made Dugu Bo heave a sigh of relief.

He was genuinely terrified that he might accidentally inflict injuries or leave behind some lingering issues for Chen Ming.

If something were to happen to Chen Ming—the great benefactor to both him and his granddaughter—Dugu Bo felt he would truly have to die to expiate his sins.

Chen Ming had entered deep meditation, perceiving the changes within his body.

Originally, Chen Ming's meridians could be described as quite robust. After this round of cleansing and repair, not only did the robust meridians become wider, but they also acquired a resilience brimming with vitality, providing him with a greater margin of safety when facing unexpected situations in the future.

The toxins that had invaded his body were washed away by soul power and vitality, losing their aggressiveness, and were completely absorbed by the external spirit bone. This not only improved his physical fitness, but also elevated his body's toxin resistance and poison intensity to a superior level.

As for his soul power...

After absorbing his second soul ring and external spirit bone, Chen Ming's soul power rank had reached level 23, approaching level 24. After cultivating for two months, he had broken through to level 24 with Dugu Yan's catalyst. After lending a hand to Dugu Bo, the soul power within Chen Ming's body had also experienced a non-trivial surge, directly advancing to level 26, approaching level 27.

At this rate, Chen Ming estimated that in about half a month of cultivation, he could truly reach level twenty-seven.

However, compared to these superficial manifestations, Chen Ming cared even more about the essential changes.

Not only did his martial soul break through to become the Scorpion Emperor, and his external spirit bone grow to the ten-thousand-year level while gaining a new ability, but the most significant harvest in this process was that Chen Ming had acquired a portion of the intrinsic, core-level lethal poison that even Dugu Bo himself could not properly control.

The members of the Dugu family used themselves as vessels and the Jade Phosphorus Snake as the king of gu for venom cultivation. Countless people had died, and countless time had been spent, finally bearing fruit in Dugu Bo and barely cultivating the gu king.

Chen Ming devoured this portion of traits and integrated it into his own martial soul. From then on, Chen Ming could also cultivate gu within his own body via his martial soul by absorbing the origin of poison-attribute soul beasts.

Moreover, because he directly acquired the results that Dugu Bo had already refined, the origin of Dugu Bo's Jade Phosphorus Snake had completely merged into Chen Ming's Emerald Scorpion, fusing into a single, flawless entity. Now, Chen Ming's Emerald Scorpion Emperor martial soul simultaneously possessed a portion of the traits of the Jade Phosphorus Snake Emperor martial soul.

These traits were not only expressed in soul power; Chen Ming's physical body would also receive a certain degree of enhancement. With the current martial soul avatar active, he would gain base attributes equivalent to 100% of the Jade Phosphorus Scorpion Emperor martial soul and 25% of the Jade Phosphorus Snake Emperor martial soul.

The flaws of the Emerald Scorpion—originally lacking in agility and stamina—were largely compensated for by the traits of the Jade Phosphorus Snake Emperor, and even its toxicity gained a unique flair.

Chen Ming's Jade Phosphorus Scorpion Emperor martial soul, having combined with the origin of the Jade Phosphorus Snake Emperor martial soul, underwent an unprecedented transformation. And this transformation was undoubtedly beneficial.

Treating Dugu Bo this time left Dugu Bo immensely benefited, and Chen Ming harvested massive gains as well. The benefits brought by this treatment were entirely no less beneficial to Chen Ming than consuming a celestial herb.

After all, the celestial herbs within the Ice and Fire Yin-Yang Well were not yet the hundred-thousand-year soul beasts of Douluo Continent II, so their medicinal potency was inevitably lacking. And while Dugu Bo was a bit weak, he was still a genuine Titled Douro; his origin would absolutely not be inferior to a hundred-thousand-year soul beast.

What was more, Dugu Bo was a poison user; his poison arts had been cultivated for several decades, and the Jade Phosphorus Snake Emperor inside his body carried traits similar to a gu king. Chen Ming could gain a massive amount of experience points just by taking a couple of sips on the side.

The most important thing was that this was a long-term business. By continuing to detoxify Dugu Bo in the future, Chen Ming could reap sustained benefits. The long-term value was far higher than that of an ordinary celestial herb.