Level 29, Thousand-Year Soul Bone

Xiao Xiao's path forward was clear: enhance her physique, stack weight, and use her soul rings to continuously increase the mass and suppressing power of her Three-Life Soul-Suppressing Cauldron.

Coupled with the powerful mental strength gained from practicing the Concentration Meditation Method, Xiao Xiao could wield her Three-Life Soul-Suppressing Cauldron as if it were an extension of her own arm, striking exactly where she aimed.

In battles against opponents of the same rank, it was like controlling three heavy trucks; for a soul master of equal level, a mere graze meant a serious injury, fully illustrating the meaning of raw stats.

And if any soul master mistakenly believed Xiao Xiao's physical body was fragile and chose to launch a sneak attack at close range, things became even more interesting.

Xiao Xiao would simply swing the Soul-Suppressing Cauldron, using practical action to demonstrate the beauty of stats to her opponent once again.

Now, the Three-Life Soul-Suppressing Cauldron, with its ever-stacking weight, was essentially no different from low-level fixed-shell soul guidance projectiles in Xiao Xiao's hands.

Most importantly, as long as Xiao Xiao continued along this path, her physique would grow increasingly robust, allowing her to fully withstand the risk of soul power conflict when she eventually began cultivating her second martial soul.

It could be said that everything was moving in a positive direction.

The group entered the main hall and sat down. A servant brought tea and snacks, and Wang Dong'er began eating without any ceremony.

Jiang Ci'an, meanwhile, took out a bottle of supplement. He drank it while listening to Xiao Xiao recount her experiences hunting soul beasts over the past half-month.

Wang Dong'er, having no intention of acting as a "soul guidance lightbulb," stuffed her mouth with cookies and added a few words from time to time. The two girls chatted back and forth, their rapport quite natural.

Jiang Ci'an listened quietly, watching the two girls before him with a smile, nodding occasionally.

Over the past six months, Xiao Xiao and Wang Dong'er had indeed progressed rapidly, but his own progress had been even faster.

Today, he had reached level twenty-nine.

In half a year, he had gone from level twenty-four to level twenty-nine, an average of one level every month or so.

Such speed, if word got out, would surely be shocking.

Reaching this level was, naturally, the result of many factors combined.

First and foremost was the comprehensive iteration of the "Body Tempering Method."

Working together with Elder Yi, they had pushed the localization of the Knight System at a near-frenzied pace, which had greatly expanded the upper limits of the original "Body Tempering Method."

The current "Body Tempering Method," whether in the efficiency of tempering the body or the speed of condensing soul power, far surpassed what it had been six months ago. As long as the body could endure it, the efficiency could be vastly increased.

Furthermore, driven by this technique, they had successfully unearthed the power of bloodline.

Compared to soul power, this strength hidden deep within the body was better suited for tempering the physique, and it could work in tandem with soul power to temper each other, resulting in even higher efficiency!

Secondly, there was the normalized "Ring Unlocking."

His second soul ring, at the four-thousand-year level, continuously poured the energy contained within it into his body under the impetus of normalized "Ring Unlocking."

The quality of this energy was high, the total volume was large, and most importantly, it was inexhaustible, effectively providing an additional twenty percent boost to his cultivation efficiency.

When these two factors were combined with the twenty percent independent cultivation efficiency multiplier from the normalized "Time Control," the cumulative effect was even more astonishing.

However, none of these were the biggest contributors.

The reason he could cultivate so quickly, far exceeding his own initial expectations, was most importantly due to the soul bones he now possessed.

Yes, a full set of soul bones.

Now, every one of the two hundred and six bones in his body had undergone the transformation of "Self-Condensing Soul Bone."

If one were to judge by standard soul bone grading, every bone on his body could be considered a thousand-year soul bone!

While it wasn't as if he had literally installed two hundred and six soul bones into his body, the boost it provided him was terrifying.

Whether it was strength, speed, physique, soul power recovery, mental strength, or even the absorption efficiency of heaven and earth energy... what this set of soul bones brought him was an almost all-encompassing, flawless improvement!

Most importantly, it possessed the powerful characteristic of growing alongside the soul master, much like an external soul bone!

All of this stemmed from the "Self-Condensing Soul Bone" method that he and Elder Yi had been developing day and night for over half a year.

Half a year ago, after obtaining some of the data related to the Angel Divine Set from the virtual world, he and Elder Yi had officially begun the development of the "Self-Condensing Soul Bone" method, following the direction of condensing soul bones to artificially shape spirit aperture slots.

Of course, they did not choose to simply copy the Angel Divine Set as a template; after all, the Angel Divine Set was primarily adapted for the Six-Winged Angel.

Their approach was more refined.

That is, they divided the two hundred and six bones of the body into six major regions, corresponding to the six natural soul bone slots of a soul master.

The bones within each region were designed with energy structures that referenced the linkage methods of the Angel Divine Set and the magic inscription technology from the Throne of Seal that acted upon the body, ensuring that the soul bones could cooperate and enhance one another.

At the same time, they reserved the most important "spirit aperture slots" within them.

Relying on the virtual world's ability to die and reset at will, Jiang Ci'an constantly used himself as experimental material.

If one path didn't work, he would blow himself up, revert after the explosion, and then try a different path.

Countless wrong options were eliminated one by one, and the project's progress moved forward at a speed that seemed insane to outsiders.

In just two months, the "Self-Condensing Soul Bone" method was initially created.

At that time, he began his first comprehensive tempering of his entire skeletal structure.

The results were remarkable.

After the initial tempering was completed, his two hundred and six bones were roughly equivalent to the level of ten-year soul bones.

For him, who was already level twenty-five and had been practicing the "Body Tempering Method," the boost from a full set of ten-year soul bones wasn't massive, but it brought a special sensation.

A feeling of his entire body being as responsive as his own arm, a sense of his physique being clear and unified!

It was also after that successful Self-Condensing Soul Bone that he unearthed the Bloodline Power from within his body; it could be said that the harvest was bountiful.

Following that, the progress of the "Self-Condensing Soul Bone" became even faster.

In just another month, he had tempered the bones throughout his entire body to the century level.

Two months later, he reached the millennium level.

The reason he could progress so quickly, aside from the fact that he feared no death in the Virtual World and thus had extremely high research efficiency, making him intimately familiar with the condensation process, was that his own cultivation base was not low.

His Soul Power cultivation as a Soul Grand Master, combined with the robust physique forged by the "Body Tempering Method," made the initial process of condensing soul bones much easier than he had anticipated.

However, he understood that this period of rapid growth would not last forever.

The further he went, the greater the difficulty in improving the quality of the "Self-Condensing Soul Bone," and the more energy and time it would require; the speed of improvement would inevitably slow down, and it was not something to be rushed.

At the same time, according to Elder Yi, millennium-level soul bones could not yet support a Spirit Aperture.

It was similar to the Knight System, where a knight typically condenses their first Spirit Aperture after reaching the sixth rank, which requires a sufficiently powerful physique as a foundation.

Converted to soul bone quality, this meant the quality of his entire set of soul bones had to reach the ten-thousand-year level.

He was not there yet; he still needed to take it one step at a time.

And this, perhaps, was the greatest difference between the "Self-Condensing Soul Bone" and the soul bones dropped by ordinary soul beasts.