Soul Ring Selection

Having made up his mind, Ye Luochen turned his attention back to the Soul Beasts before him.

No matter the external factors, this was the Fourth Soul Ring he would personally absorb and use on himself. He absolutely could not be careless.

Since the attributes of these Soul Beasts were all highly compatible, Ye Luochen gave them a quick look before focusing on their cultivation age.

Theoretically, the greater the age, the more powerful the Soul Skill it granted.

However, for Soul Masters, there was a certain range of Soul Ring ages they could absorb at each corresponding level.

Taking Ye Luochen's current level forty as an example, anything under five thousand years was generally considered relatively safe.

If one blindly pursued a higher age, their body could very well collapse under the Soul Ring's energy.

But clearly, Ye Luochen had no intention of following that rule.

Because the standard summarized by a certain Master ten thousand years ago had never been absolute.

Over the past ten thousand years, plenty of people had broken that standard.

To say nothing else, take that Master's direct disciple, Tang San. Nearly everyone on the continent knew that his Fourth Soul Ring was at the ten-thousand-year level.

Even the direct disciple had not followed his theory.

In truth, Ye Luochen had not previously been entirely certain what age of Soul Rings he should absorb in the future.

Because this was an extremely difficult question to answer accurately.

Martial Soul quality, mental strength, physical strength, whether one possessed Soul Bones...

All of these affected a Soul Master's ability to bear a Soul Ring.

Among these factors, only Soul Bones could directly yield a simple and intuitive result.

As for the rest—especially mental strength and physical strength—there had previously been no way to assess them accurately, because neither had precise, data-based levels like Soul Power did.

One could only make rough judgments.

For instance, assault-type Soul Masters generally had stronger bodies than Soul Masters of other types.

For instance, Soul Masters with mental attributes generally possessed greater mental strength than Soul Masters with other attributes.

But such vague patterns clearly could not properly account for individual differences.

As a result, in many cases, when Soul Masters absorbed Soul Rings, they either chose the more conservative approach and absorbed a lower-aged Soul Ring, or gambled with their lives. Success meant soaring to greatness; failure meant death.

And that was clearly not what Ye Luochen wanted.

Fortunately, today was no longer like the past.

In the past, these factors could only be roughly estimated. Now, he had Soul Engineer technology.

After he expressed his thoughts, machines were soon brought before Ye Luochen one after another.

They were precisely the examination devices he had experienced when he first enrolled.

Through these Soul Engineer devices, he could clearly and directly see the numerical values of every aspect of himself. Their results were undoubtedly far more accurate than his own estimates.

After all, even he could not claim to understand himself absolutely.

Ye Luochen knew that all too well.

In his previous life, he had seen far too many Jiahaos swear that they could easily run one hundred meters in under ten seconds, only for electronic timers to clock them at twelve or thirteen seconds in droves.

Then they would turn around and complain that the timers were all fake, that capitalism had ruined their college dreams.

After a series of examinations, Ye Luochen's latest data was ready:

Physical strength: Soul King level.

Physical flexibility: Soul Emperor level.

Strength: Soul King level.

Speed: Soul King level.

Mental strength: approaching the level of a fifth-rank Soul Engineer.

Other than his Soul Power Level, every one of Ye Luochen's attributes far exceeded the standard for level forty.

Under such circumstances, if he still followed conventional thinking and obediently absorbed a five- or six-thousand-year Soul Ring, he would undoubtedly be wasting the attributes he had forged through countless drops of sweat.

Thus, Ye Luochen directly skipped past the Soul Beasts below ten thousand years.

He came before several metal cages imprisoning Soul Beasts that were over ten thousand years old.

Seeing Ye Luochen's action, Jing Hongchen's brows immediately rose slightly.

To be honest, at that moment, he very much wanted to advise Ye Luochen not to overthink this.

He had originally intended to save those ten-thousand-year Soul Beasts for Ye Luochen's later Soul Rings.

Although the data showed that Ye Luochen's physical strength already far surpassed that of a Soul Ancestor, choosing a roughly suitable thousand-year Soul Ring would undoubtedly be safer.

Because this was the Sun Moon Empire. This was Mingde Hall.

They had Soul Engineer technology, and exceptionally powerful Soul Engineer technology at that.

That technology was where their true focus lay.

Yet when the words reached his lips, Jing Hongchen ultimately did not say them.

Because as the master of Mingde Hall, he understood very well that their methods all this time had not been entirely correct.

Certainly, with Soul Engineer technology, they could compensate for the shortcomings of their Martial Souls to a considerable extent and contend against the original Douluo Three Kingdoms.

But in terms of top-tier combat power, the Sun Moon Empire still lagged considerably behind the original Douluo Three Kingdoms.

Those Soul Master powerhouses at the level of Super Douluo, even Limit Douluo, were not opponents their ninth-rank Soul Engineers could handle.

At least not with Soul Engineer technology as it stood in recent decades.

They could only see whether they could catch up somewhat in Soul Power cultivation.

And if they wanted to achieve a higher upper limit in Soul Power cultivation, they naturally could no longer pursue conservatism with Soul Rings.

They had to be bolder.

Jing Hongchen had actually seen this clearly long ago, but he had never truly put it into practice over the years.

The reason was simple: there had been no suitable candidate.

The Sun Moon Empire's people generally possessed Martial Souls of poor quality. Trying to absorb Soul Rings that defied convention was utterly unrealistic and no different from throwing away their lives.

Of course, there were exceptions.

Xiao Hongchen and Meng Hongchen were both geniuses with exceptionally high-quality Martial Souls and Innate Full Soul Power.

Furthermore, as Jing Hongchen's grandson and granddaughter, they had the resources to obtain Soul Rings of higher ages.

But therein lay both the success and the failure.

Had it been anyone else, Jing Hongchen would certainly not have let the opportunity pass. He would have found a way to let them attempt to absorb higher-aged Soul Rings.

But when it came to these two, he could not bear it.

He could not allow it, nor could he accept his grandson and granddaughter taking such a risk.

Thus, despite their outstanding Martial Soul talents, the Hongchen siblings' first four Soul Rings had still obediently followed the standard of yellow, yellow, purple, purple.

But things were different now.

Now, standing before him was Ye Luochen.

A person with considerable talent, a deep foundation, and most importantly, no blood ties to hold him back.

In that case, why not let him try?

With that thought, Jing Hongchen ultimately did not speak to stop him. Instead, he let Ye Luochen walk step by step toward the cages imprisoning those ten-thousand-year Soul Beasts.

Of course, Ye Luochen knew nothing of Jing Hongchen's thoughts.

At that moment, he was facing another difficult problem.