LIGHTNOVELWORLD Chapter 8: Hundred Thousand Year Old Spirit Beast
Wang Lin lurked in the branches of the tree, observing a golden frog from a distance.
The frog was basking in the sun with its eyes closed on a lotus leaf floating in the pond.
After observing the frog for a while, Wang Lin slithered down from the tree and entered the pond without alerting it.
He swam under the water, hiding below the lotus leaf. He waited for an opportune moment to attack, keeping his sight on the shadowy silhouette of the frog on the lotus leaf.
He inched closer to the golden metal frog, unhinged his jaw, sank his fangs in, and injected venom into its body.
The golden metal frog didn't last long. Wang Lin wanted to store the corpse in his system, but there was no space available. So he swam to the bank of the pond and swallowed the frog whole. This was the first thing he ate after waking up in this body.
The raw flesh of animals didn't seem to affect him that much. It had been two months since becoming a snake, even though most of it was spent sleeping.
Wang Lin, sunning himself by the pond after his meal, thought about what to do next.
He was tired of playing cat-and-mouse games. All he needed was time and the corpses of animals to grow stronger.
Venturing into the Star Dou Forest could turn perilous at any time, so he needed a secure place to grow stronger.
While lost in thought, an idea sparked in his mind: not only animal corpses but also plants could help him grow stronger. The blue silver grass he had eaten seemed to increase his age. Although he couldn't digest it fully, it had still added a couple of years to his age on the panel.
So he decided to test whether this was feasible. He searched his surroundings and quickly found a plant with flowers at the top. He slithered over, wrapped himself around its stem, and pulled it from the ground, its roots resembling those of ginseng.
He wanted to store the ginseng plant in his system, so he opened the on-hook panel.
On Hook Panel:
Name: Wang Lin
Attribute: Poison
Age: 3,923 years
Grid 1: Bright Light Deer (62k years)
Grid 2: Man-Faced Demon Spider (3k years)
Grid 3: Locked
But all the available slots were occupied, so he had no other choice but to take out the Man-Faced Demon Spider, dump it in the pond, and place the ginseng in his second slot.
He waited for the ginseng to grow in age so he could test his hypothesis. While he waited, he observed the pond as spirit beasts came to drink the water.
Wang Lin wanted to make the pond his base. The pond's location was in a narrow valley with an entrance allowing only small spirit beasts to pass.
So he devised a plan to slowly poison the waters of the pond to keep away the spirit beasts that came looking for water.
Wang Lin slithered toward the pond and sank into its depths, lurking as he released his poison frequently into the waters of the pond.
Two Months Later
The pond in the valley turned green; all the vegetation near the pond had wilted away. Small spirit beast skeletons lay around the pond. The area was eerily silent, the poisoned pond water still and without waves.
Breaking the water's stillness, air bubbles emerged to the surface, followed by the head of a monstrous ten-meter-long, four-meter-wide snake with purple scales.
In the past two months, Wang Lin had undergone a mind-blowing transformation, growing significantly in size.
On Hook Panel:
Name: Wang Lin
Attribute: Poison Age: 23,023 years
Grids Available: 4
Items: Bright Light Deer (122k years), Spirit Ginseng (60k years), Ghost Wolf (36k years), Man-Faced Demon Spider (6k years)
Although cumbersome to digest, the spirit ginseng allowed him to gain years of progress from small bites, unlike spirit beast corpses, which disappeared after consumption. The spirit ginseng could recover its size after some time in the system.
In just four months, Wang Lin had grown from a measly 100-year-old spirit beast to a 20,000-year-old one. After reaching and crossing the 10,000-year mark, his size stabilized at ten meters. His pink scales molted and turned purple.
Astonishingly, he unlocked two new spots in the system, which he filled with a Ghost Wolf spirit beast that wandered near the valley, along with the Man-Faced Demon Spider. The Bright Light Deer had also reached the 100,000-year mark with no signs of slowing down.
The poison he released in these two months had increased in potency compared to the beginning, polluting the pond water and diverting all potential spirit beasts that came looking for water.
Wang Lin grew bored of the monotonous routine of the past two months, so he wanted to venture into the depths of Star Dou.
Before setting out, he decided to gain more strength as a last-ditch effort.
The corpse of the Bright Light Deer emerged from the system, floating on the poisoned waters of the pond.
The corpse of the dead Bright Light Deer was far more majestic in appearance than it had been in life.
Its horns and markings throbbed with pulses of light-attributed energy, and after reaching the 100,000-year mark, the beast's blood and flesh seemed to sublimate in quality.
Wang Lin unhinged his jaw, swallowed the corpse whole, and sank to the bottom of the pond.
He knew he would emerge stronger after digesting the corpse. He knew that Star Dou Forest held many surprises, and he was curious about the human settlements.
He knew that whatever came his way would meet its death, content after a long period of only worrying about survival. Wang Lin fell asleep.
Time passed. The poisonous valley of the purple serpent returned to its eerie silence. Fate seemed to sense Wang Lin's growing confidence.
Roaming high above the waters of the poison valley, the rebellious spirit of the sky, the Emerald Demon Bird, cast a shadow on the waters where Wang Lin lay asleep.