Soul Spirit Absorption and Looking to the Future

"Sister Xue, I can still absorb soul spirits normally."

In the soul-guided car, Shen Yue sat in the driver's seat, leading the two little ones toward the Spirit Pagoda with the goal of obtaining soul spirits for them.

Shen Nanxun leaned back in the rear seat, eyes closed for a light nap as he immersed himself in his spiritual sea.

Qian Renxue stretched, answering lazily, "Although we are your soul spirits, we are still different from normal ones. You can naturally absorb soul spirits just like the ordinary soul masters of your era, you just can't attach soul rings to them. Still, it will be of some help to you."

"Then what type should I choose?"

"The holy attribute is best, and the light attribute will suffice as a second choice."

Qian Renxue crossed her legs, looking quite interested as she added:

"It just so happens that I'm also lacking a little slave to pour tea and water."

"..."

"Sister Xue, let's be serious, can we?" Shen Nanxun rubbed his forehead in frustration, then coughed twice and leaned in closer with a flattering smile: "Let's discuss something."

Qian Renxue didn't change her lazy posture against the seat, but her pale purple eyes narrowed slightly: "Speak first."

She always felt that Shen Nanxun was up to no good.

Shen Nanxun's smile became even more sincere as he hurriedly praised her: "Look at you, Sister Xue, you are the dignified Angel God, a famous deity, knowledgeable and well-versed in both ancient and modern times..."

"Stop, say what you need to say, don't butter me up." Qian Renxue cut off his flattery in time.

Shen Nanxun dropped the smile and said seriously: "I want to ask Sister Xue to help me learn mecha design."

Qian Renxue sat up straight, folded her arms, lifted her chin slightly, and let out a soft huff.

"You want This Seat to learn mecha design so you can free up your hands to learn forging, is that it? Shen Nanxun, you have quite the clever plan, but I am the Angel God, not your study companion."

"Sister Xue, you really can't put it that way." Shen Nanxun explained: "Look, if I learn mecha design by myself, my forging will fall behind; if I go to learn forging, my mecha design won't keep up. When the time comes, I won't be able to build battle armor, or what I build won't be strong enough. Wouldn't that be embarrassing? Most importantly, I'm not afraid of being embarrassed, but when I think that I have an Angel God like you as a soul spirit and I'm still so poor at it, wouldn't that bury the reputation of the Angel God?"

"Sister Xue, think about it, think carefully."

Qian Renxue remained unmoved, her eyes filled with indifference: "Reverse psychology won't work. No matter what you say today, I won't agree to it."

Her attitude was firm.

"So resolute?"

"It must be resolute."

"No room for negotiation?"

"No room for negotiation!"

Shen Nanxun ground his teeth and rolled his eyes: "Fine, I was originally planning to buy five spicy rabbit heads every day, but it seems now, hiss..."

"Ahem." Just then, Qian Renxue, who had been so firm, coughed twice, still holding her head high, "It's not entirely impossible, but it has to be ten spicy rabbit heads."

"Deal!"

Shen Nanxun agreed instantly.

Qian Renxue was stunned for a moment, then realized what happened, her face full of heartache.

"I asked for too little!"

Emerging from the spiritual sea, Shen Nanxun opened his eyes, the corners of his mouth curling up in satisfaction.

If he had known spicy rabbit heads were this effective, he would have said so earlier and saved himself the haggling. But at the end of the day, Sister Xue was just hard-mouthed and soft-hearted; otherwise, she wouldn't help him just for this.

The timing was perfect; just as he regained his senses, the car pulled into the plaza in front of the North Sea City Spirit Pagoda.

In front of the Spirit Pagoda, Su Jiuyin, who had awakened Na'er's martial soul last time, was waiting there.

"Jiuyin, I told you, you don't need to wait at the entrance yourself."

Shen Yue walked up and affectionately linked her arm with the other woman's. The two were already very close friends.

Su Jiuyin smiled gently: "How could I not? Yue'er is personally bringing her younger brother and sister here, so of course I have to welcome you myself."

Shen Yue chatted with her as she led the two inside the Spirit Pagoda.

"Are the soul spirits ready?"

"Of course."

Su Jiuyin led them toward a secure room on one of the upper floors.

The sky-blue room was full of a technological atmosphere, with the entire space dominated by blue and white tones, and soul spirit orbs floating all around. Above them were images showing the specific appearance of each soul spirit.

In the very center, there were several transparent glass pillars, each containing a floating soul spirit orb. Clearly, these were more important.

Shen Yue stopped and asked: "Xiaoxun, Na'er, if you have any preferred soul spirit types, feel free to mention them."

"As long as it has dragon bloodline, that's fine." Na'er's request was naturally for a soul spirit with dragon bloodline, preferably a sub-dragon species.

"That's perfect, our North Sea Spirit Pagoda has an Iron-Armored Tyrant Dragon, century-level, and it's a sub-dragon species. Its attributes are quite domineering, which should fit your spear martial soul well."

As Su Jiuyin introduced it, she operated the screen to display the image of the Iron-Armored Tyrant Dragon along with its various attributes and detailed information.

Na'er nodded in satisfaction and gave a small grin:

"Little Dragon, so cute."

"What kind of aesthetic is that?" Shen Nanxun muttered from the side. This Iron-Armored Tyrant Dragon had absolutely nothing to do with being cute; it was a hunchbacked dragon through and through.

However, he had forgotten that Na'er was essentially the Silver Dragon King; it was only natural for her to have such sentiments upon seeing a fellow member of the dragon race.

"Little Xun, what about you?"

He naturally followed the types Qian Renxue had mentioned earlier. "A holy attribute or a light attribute. If there's... an Unyielding Spirit, then I would be happy to accept it."

While a holy attribute was certainly good, an Unyielding Spirit was even more worth tasting.

Shen Yue pinched his little cheek with annoyance. "What are you thinking? The Spirit Pagoda doesn't have many Unyielding Spirits in total, and they are almost never given to outsiders."

"There are, there are."

Almost as soon as Shen Yue finished speaking, Su Jiuyin took over the conversation.

"???"

Not just Shen Yue, but even Shen Nanxun was a bit bewildered. He had only mentioned it in passing, yet it actually existed.

Xun wants, Xun gets.

Su Jiuyin didn't explain, instead leading them deep into the building. She entered a password and adjusted the parameters.

On the screen, an image appeared. It was a golden rabbit, about the size of an adult human. Its physical features were no different from a normal rabbit, except for its golden luster and a sun-like mark on its forehead.

"Sky-Light Rabbit, an Unyielding Spirit. Among the soul beast species on the Douluo Continent, it is the only rabbit-type Unyielding Spirit recorded by our Spirit Pagoda. Furthermore, it possesses the extremely rare dual attributes of holy and light, which fits you perfectly."

"A rabbit type?" For some reason, Shen Nanxun immediately thought of spicy rabbit heads and the Soft-Bone Charm Rabbit.

However, he wondered if this Sky-Light Rabbit would taste good if made into a spicy rabbit head.

Su Jiuyin nodded slightly. "The individual combat power of a Sky-Light Rabbit isn't actually particularly strong, but they are extremely rare. It is a mutated species resulting from the union of a Moon Rabbit and a Light-Tail Rabbit."

"They have an incredibly unyielding temperament. Unlike other rabbit-type soul beasts that are prone to frequent mating and reproduction, each Sky-Light Rabbit will only find one mate in its lifetime and produce only one litter of offspring, which is why their numbers are so scarce. Moreover, they have a very strong sense of family and would rather die than abandon their mate or offspring. This is the reason it became an Unyielding Spirit."

An Unyielding Spirit didn't have to be a powerful soul beast; creatures with a fierce and unyielding nature like the Sky-Light Rabbit could also become one.

Shen Nanxun couldn't help but take another look at this stubborn soul beast on the screen. "I'll take it."

The attributes matched, and it was an Unyielding Spirit; he had no reason not to choose it.

After selecting the soul spirit, the next step was absorption. The Spirit Pagoda naturally provided a dedicated room for this purpose.

Su Jiuyin warned, "An Unyielding Spirit's spirit does not perish even after death; its will is unyielding, and its soul is extremely tenacious, making it difficult to submit. Ordinary soul masters must pay a higher price than usual to form a soul spirit contract with an Unyielding Spirit. Even though it suits you well, you must consider it carefully. If you cannot adapt and force the absorption, you will inevitably suffer a severe backlash, which could even endanger your life."

"However, you can try to build a bridge with it using your spiritual power to see its level of acceptance."

"It's fine, I'll just absorb it directly."

Shen Nanxun was very decisive.

Su Jiuyin didn't say anything to his insistence. Based on her understanding of her best friend's family, they were all incredibly stubborn people.

They were firm in their decisions, yet very rational, and the choices they made were correct most of the time.

Shen Nanxun's spiritual power probed into the soul spirit orb, guiding a strand of the Sky-Light Rabbit's spiritual power into his sea of consciousness.

The moment Shen Nanxun's consciousness touched that pale golden light, a clear, bright voice exploded within his sea of consciousness.

"This rabbit will never yield! Human, don't you dare dream of it!"

Although the Sky-Light Rabbit's voice was intense, because it was female, the tone was soft and lacked any real threat.

"Are you sure?" Shen Nanxun's expression was a bit strange, though he didn't show any overly aggressive attitude.

"This rabbit will never submit, even in death!"

Shen Nanxun just tilted his head slightly, glancing out of the corner of his eye toward the direction of the golden branch deep within his sea of consciousness.

The Sky-Light Rabbit followed his gaze. Her ears stiffened abruptly. Her amber eyes widened suddenly.

There, sitting on the golden branch, was a blonde woman, and a holy attribute even more powerful than her own washed over her. Furthermore, it was mixed with an extremely unique... divinity!

That was an existence no soul beast could ever hope to reach; after all, the ironclad rule that soul beasts could not become gods had been circulating on the Douluo Continent for countless millennia. The last soul beast to attempt to become a god was the Deep Sea Demon Whale King.

The total suppression of the holy attribute, combined with this divinity. Most absurdly, the human woman carrying this divinity was holding something in her hand...

A rabbit head!!!

The Sky-Light Rabbit's posture changed drastically; she slid to her knees and kowtowed. "Little Rabbit, I bow before you!"

Shen Nanxun gave a thumbs up, offering high praise. "You didn't call me when you started changing faces."

Qian Renxue yawned lazily, then waved her hand. "Come here, knead my shoulders and legs for This Seat."

And so, the so-called Unyielding Spirit was seen obediently, perhaps even overly fawningly, kneading Qian Renxue's shoulders.

"Wait, buddy, where's your unyielding nature? Where's your strong will?"

The Sky-Light Rabbit's stance: What is face worth? My life and future are more important.

Meanwhile, outside.

"Jiuyin, an Unyielding Spirit isn't that easy to come by, is it?" Shen Yue knew full well the value of an Unyielding Spirit, let alone the fact that they weren't at the Spirit Pagoda headquarters.

Moreover, with the attributes matching and it being an Unyielding Spirit, everything seemed a bit too coincidental.

"Yes, it was sent over personally by a high-ranking figure from the Spirit Pagoda."

Su Jiuyin lowered her voice and said, "Moreover, you should know this person; she even has some connection to your little Xun."

"You mean... her!"

Shen Yue's expression shifted slightly. She naturally knew who was being referred to, but the other party had never actually reached out to Shen Nanxun or the Shen Family to discuss that matter.

She hadn't expected that she had been paying attention all along, and looking at it now, she must have conducted an investigation.

Otherwise, how could it have been such a perfect fit?

The two didn't chat for long before they saw Shen Nanxun waking up from his state of absorbing the spirit soul.

"So fast?" Su Jiuyin was somewhat shocked. Logically speaking, whether it was the age or the unyielding attribute, Shen Nanxun's spirit soul should have been harder to absorb than Na'er's and taken longer. She hadn't expected him to be the one to finish first.

It had barely been five minutes.

To this, Shen Nanxun just helplessly spread his hands: "I can't help it, she was too 'yielding'."

Yielding as in bending the knee.

The speed of her slide-kneeling was as fast as when he faced Ye Li after making a mistake, perhaps even faster.

Within Na'er's spiritual sea, although the Iron-Armored Tyrant Dragon wasn't an unyielding spirit soul, it was still tenacious. It had originally intended to fight this human for three hundred rounds before saying anything else.

That was until it saw that silver giant dragon...

Su Jiuyin sent the three of them out of the Spirit Pagoda and couldn't help but sigh: "It seems your Shen Family has produced two more rare talents."

Although Na'er's absorption speed was slightly slower than Shen Nanxun's just now, it was still very fast overall. It was completely different from how others normally absorbed spirit souls.

This was enough to prove that both of their spiritual powers were absolutely powerful enough.

The four walked to the plaza in front of the Spirit Pagoda and were met with that massive statue. It was none other than the founder of the Spirit Pagoda, Spirit Ice Douluo Huo Yuhao.

"Spirit Ice Douluo had a total of seven great spirit souls, all of which were at least at the beast level."

Su Jiuyin pointed to the seven spirit souls carved around the statue and said, "It's a pity that spirit beasts are withering away now, and the hatred between spirit beasts and humans is even worse than it was ten thousand years ago. There can never be a second Spirit Ice Douluo."

"With the dawn of the man-made spirit soul era, perhaps one day in the future our technology will be able to create spirit souls of ten thousand years and above." Shen Yue's view was more optimistic.

Su Jiuyin didn't continue speaking. She was very clear that the significance of the Spirit Pagoda's founding had long since deviated from the founder's original intentions.

It was just that, as someone from the Spirit Pagoda, there were some things she couldn't say out loud.

Na'er stood by Shen Nanxun's side, whispering softly: "Spirit beasts..."

Shen Nanxun didn't have many sentiments. Huo Yuhao was nothing more than that; while others might envy his spirit souls, he had absolutely no need to.

His five god-level spirit souls completely crushed those beast-level spirit souls of his.

There might not be a second Spirit Ice Douluo Huo Yuhao in this world, but there could be a next Shen Nanxun.