First Soul Ring, Soul Power Level Fourteen (Part One)

Seeing the Soul Ring float up, Sect Master Chen Li and Great Elder Chen Ping hurried over to inspect and sense it carefully, repeatedly confirming its age.

"Judging by the energy fluctuations, this Soul Ring should be between seven hundred and ninety and eight hundred and ten years old. Considering the influence of its bloodline, it is most likely around seven hundred and ninety-two years old. That is within your limit of endurance, so you can absorb it."

Chen Ping took out a Soul Tool resembling a Geiger counter from his Storage Soul Tool and circled the Soul Ring, measuring its energy fluctuations with a series of beeps. Only after confirming that there was no issue with the readings did he nod and clear the way between Chen Ming and the Soul Ring.

Feeling the unseen pull, Chen Ming did not immediately step forward to absorb the Soul Ring. Instead, as he had been taught in training, he adjusted his breathing, Soul Power, and state of mind. Once he was sure everything was stable, he slowly sat before the Diamond Mammoth's corpse and began absorbing his First Soul Ring.

Watching Chen Ming enter the state of absorbing the Soul Ring, Chen Li and Chen Ping remained on guard while speaking quietly.

"Xiao Ming's First Soul Ring is an eight-hundred-year Soul Ring. That is already nearly at the limit. If not for how extraordinary the Vajra Dragon Elephant Martial Soul is, along with Xiao Ming's exceptional talent, his First Soul Ring truly could not have reached this age."

"Isn't that so... If not for the limit on total Soul Power during the Soul Master stage, and for the fact that the Vajra Dragon Elephant Martial Soul's Gold-Earth Dual Attribute has not crossed that threshold, then based on Xiao Ming's measured physical condition, he could already absorb a thousand-year First Soul Ring."

"You have no idea how shocked those people who specialize in measuring the physical data of noble children were when they saw Xiao Ming's results. Even with the combined inheritance of several generations, they had never seen data this outrageous."

Most people in the world believed that before obtaining a ten-thousand-year Soul Ring with soul shock, the only factor to consider when absorbing a Soul Ring was physical condition. As long as one's body was strong enough, there were practically no restrictions on absorbing Soul Rings.

But while this idea was correct, it was not entirely correct. It was deeply misleading.

A Soul Master had four essential elements: aside from the Martial Soul, there were essence, energy, and spirit.

Essence referred to the body. Energy referred to Soul Power. Spirit referred to spiritual power.

Compared to Soul Beasts, humans were naturally gifted in spiritual power and Soul Power, while their bodies were relatively their weak point.

Ten-year, hundred-year, and thousand-year Soul Beasts possessed simple thoughts, and a certain amount of emotion remained within their Soul Rings after death. In this era where Evil Soul Masters were becoming increasingly common, the fact that large numbers of hundred-year and thousand-year Soul Beast souls had been controlled also proved this. So why was soul shock only considered a problem at ten thousand years?

That was because the small amount of spiritual power left behind by ten-year, hundred-year, and thousand-year Soul Beasts was simply insignificant compared to the spiritual power of humans capable of absorbing such Soul Rings. It had no ability to interfere at all.

Only upon reaching ten thousand years, after undergoing sublimation and qualitative change, could the Remnant Soul left before death interfere with and burden humans absorbing Soul Rings.

Among humans, Soul Power grew the fastest, at least hundreds or thousands of times faster than that of Soul Beasts. Spiritual power came second. Unless a Soul Beast possessed a Spirit Attribute, no Soul Beast's spiritual power could compare to that of a normal Soul Master of the same level.

Only the body was relatively the weakest. Though it also improved considerably, it relied more on the boosts granted by Martial Souls and Soul Power to confront Soul Beasts head-on. Those were not permanent base attributes. This was why high-level Soul Masters, without using Soul Power, had bodies utterly incapable of clashing with Soul Beasts of the same stage.

If humans were a bucket, then the body itself was the short plank of that bucket. Thus, most of the time, as long as that short plank improved even a little, the bucket's overall capacity would increase at a visible rate.

Absorbing Soul Rings had always required essence, energy, and spirit simultaneously. It was merely that essence and spirit were more conspicuous most of the time.

For ordinary people, making up for this weakness would raise the age limit of the Soul Rings they could absorb. But once they reached a certain level, further physical growth would yield diminishing returns.

At its core, a Soul Master absorbing a Soul Ring was a clash between Soul Power and Soul Power.

The reason Soul Masters could absorb Soul Beast Soul Rings was also because a Soul Beast's Soul Ring was only a portion of the Soul Power it had accumulated, not all of its Soul Power.

To make a detailed analogy, Soul Power was soldiers, spiritual power was the commander, and the body was the battlefield that contained the war.

In gaming terms, high-purity Soul Power was roughly equivalent to soldiers of high rarity, while high-intensity Soul Power was equivalent to the soldiers' levels.

Under normal circumstances, a Soul Master's Soul Power was stronger than the Soul Power within a Soul Beast's Soul Ring. Thus, it was a clash between soldiers. A sturdy body gave the soldiers—Soul Power—a greater margin for error in a prolonged battle, preventing collapse before victory.

In terms of physical condition, Chen Ming's body was now roughly comparable to that of an ordinary level-thirty Soul Elder. His meridian strength and capacity were no different either. In theory, he could bear a thousand-year Soul Ring, but the issue lay with his Soul Power.

Spiritual power and the body could grow, but constrained by the rules of the Douluo World, before obtaining a Soul Ring, Soul Power could only lie dormant within the body in a certain proportion and could not continue growing. Compared to Chen Ming's body and spiritual power, the Soul Power that should have been the longest "plank" for a human Soul Master had instead become the short plank limiting Chen Ming.

Although if the target for his First Soul Ring were changed to an ordinary thousand-year Soul Beast, it was not impossible for him to absorb a thousand-year Soul Ring as his First Soul Ring.

But as before, there was no need for that.

The benefits and Soul Skill gained by forcibly absorbing a thousand-year Soul Ring from an ordinary Soul Beast would not necessarily surpass those gained from absorbing an eight-hundred-year Soul Ring from a suitable top-tier Soul Beast, while the risk would multiply several times over.

Risking one's life for the eighth or ninth ring was one thing, but this was merely a Soul Master's First Soul Ring. There was no need to risk one's life for it. Unless one had been driven to desperation, there was truly no reason to make such an irrational gamble.

Although the Dragon Elephant Sect appeared to be filled with brutes—and it mostly was—it was not truly made up of simple-minded fools with well-developed limbs.

Ten Thousand Years Ago, the Elephant Armored Sect, one of the predecessors of the Dragon Elephant Sect, possessed the only academy directly affiliated with one of the seven great sects. Though it had always been excluded, Elephant Armored Academy was still one of the five elemental academies and one of the top authoritative academies in the Soul Master world at the time. This showed how much importance the Elephant Armored Sect placed on knowledge.

As for the Holy Dragon Sect, it had directly split off from Spirit Hall. It possessed Spirit Hall's heritage and background, and the First Generation Sect Master, Tuoba Gui, had once been an Elder of Spirit Hall. He was also the type who valued heritage and knowledge.

Over the course of several thousand years, although the Dragon Elephant Sect had rarely produced anyone truly brilliant, it had never relaxed its thirst for and inheritance of knowledge. It had always maintained an attitude of learning from and making use of all kinds of knowledge and technology.

When Chen Ming's training had first begun, the Great Elder had specifically hired professionals from the Sun Moon Empire to continuously observe Chen Ming's various conditions. They used Soul Tools to measure his various statistics, thereby carefully estimating the optimal age of Soul Rings for him to absorb and the theoretical age limit of the Soul Rings he could contain.

Chen Ming's Soul Ring absorption process lasted for one shichen. For a level-ten Soul Master, the Soul Power contained in an eight-hundred-year Soul Beast's Soul Ring was truly considerable. Even with a body strong enough that he did not need to worry about his meridians suddenly rupturing during the struggle, subduing it still demanded tremendous effort and concentration.

Fortunately, after two months of hellish training, Chen Ming had made tremendous progress in willpower. He slowly devoured and refined the Soul Power within the Soul Ring at a pace that was slow but steady.

As Chen Ming's aura gradually stabilized, a yellow Soul Ring tinged with purple appeared beside him, and his body slowly swelled as though it had been inflated.

The Soul Power and medicinal power within Chen Ming's Body, which had been forced to lie dormant in his flesh and blood due to the lack of a First Soul Ring, were awakened at this moment. They slowly flowed through Chen Ming's body, either transforming into Soul Power or further stimulating his physical growth.

Chen Ming opened his eyes and felt as though his strength had explosively increased. It seemed that he could punch a person in a vegetative state to death with one fist, and that there was nothing in the world he could not accomplish.

But after a brief moment of confusion, Chen Ming quickly adjusted his emotions and broke free from the false mindset brought on by his rapid improvement. He rose from the ground and struck a bodybuilding pose as if showing off.

"I succeeded! I feel great right now..."

"My Soul Power is now level fourteen! As long as I go back and cultivate diligently, I estimate that I can reach level fifteen in a month and a half at most!"