Three-Ring Soul Elder, Drawbacks

Jing Chen looked at the blood-red soul ring. Gritting his teeth, he decided to take the risk and give it a try.

Although this Golden Tortoise had been killed by Yi Yi, he could still absorb its soul ring.

Generally speaking, soul rings produced by soul beasts not killed by soul masters were considered ownerless, and other soul masters could absorb them.

In fact, even soul beasts killed by soul masters could be made ownerless using special Soul Tools.

Just like Xuan Ziwen in the original work, who had collected soul rings after the beast tide, erased the soul masters' auras from them, and sold them as ownerless soul rings.

Soul power circulated through Jing Chen's body, and cold air began to seep from around him. The phantom of the Qilin Martial Soul appeared behind him.

The rhythmic hum of soul rings sounded as one yellow and one purple soul ring rose from beneath his feet.

Jing Chen sat cross-legged. Having made up his mind, he did not hesitate any longer. He reached toward the red soul ring and drew it over.

As the red soul ring approached, Jing Chen grew tense as well. Uneasy, he prepared himself for the worst.

The red soul ring moved above his head, and red energy drifted from the halo and entered his body.

Jing Chen had already prepared himself for the impact of that energy, but reality differed greatly from what he had expected.

The absorption of the soul ring had indeed begun, yet no powerful energy entered his body.

What entered him now was only the soul beast's origin energy. Unlike ordinary energy, this energy was not destructive.

"It really works." After a brief moment of stunned disbelief, Jing Chen broke into a delighted smile. His guess had been correct.

Once Yi Yi had drained the soul beast's energy, the soul ring it produced contained no energy.

This Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast ring now contained only a pure soul beast origin imprint, without any energy he could not endure.

That meant he could absorb this soul ring without any risk of exploding from excessive energy.

Realizing that he had won the gamble, Jing Chen let out a long breath and relaxed considerably.

I can absorb soul rings like this from now on. There'll be no need to consider their age anymore, Jing Chen thought.

The success of this attempt brought him enormous benefits. In the future, he could obtain soul rings as powerful as possible.

Since the soul ring contained only origin energy, Jing Chen absorbed it with exceptional ease and without any discomfort.

Absorbing this Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Beast's soul ring was easier than absorbing his previous two soul rings combined.

However, easy as it was, it took rather a long time. The origin energy was converted very slowly.

After all, this was origin energy at the hundred-thousand-year level. With Jing Chen's current cultivation, refining it naturally would not be fast.

In the blink of an eye, five days passed, and Jing Chen's absorption of the hundred-thousand-year soul ring neared its end.

The soul ring completely entered his body, signaling the end of the absorption process. He had successfully absorbed the hundred-thousand-year soul ring.

After absorbing it, no particularly strong energy fluctuations erupted from Jing Chen's body. Everything was relatively calm.

Jing Chen slowly opened his eyes. The five days of absorption had left him looking exhausted, with weariness and bewilderment in his eyes.

"My soul power only increased by one level, barely reaching Rank 31?" Jing Chen carefully sensed his soul power and found that he had not misjudged it.

He took out the newly purchased soul power testing crystal, which could measure Soul Power Levels below Rank 90.

He poured soul power into it, and it quickly displayed his Soul Power Level: Rank 31.

Seeing that number, Jing Chen froze. He had absorbed a hundred-thousand-year soul ring, yet his soul power had barely risen by one level?

Not only had his soul power risen by just one level, but his physical strength had not changed much compared to before he absorbed the soul ring.

Logically, after absorbing a soul ring and breaking through to Soul Elder, his physical strength should have increased greatly. Yet in reality, there had been little change.

It was far too abnormal, making him feel as if he had absorbed a fake soul ring.

Jing Chen did not panic. Instead, he lowered his head in thought, trying hard to determine the reason.

During this process, he released his martial soul as well. Three soul rings appeared in sequence, with the red hundred-thousand-year soul ring at the very outside.

Looking at that soul ring, Jing Chen knew that he had successfully absorbed it.

The red soul ring before him and his Rank 31 soul power both proved that, but why had his physical strength increased so little?

"Could it be because there was no energy in the soul ring, so my body wasn't tempered by energy?"

Jing Chen murmured as he compared the differences between the feeling of absorbing his first two soul rings and this one.

He discovered that the greatest difference was that he had not experienced an impact of energy this time.

That certainly had its advantages, allowing him to absorb this hundred-thousand-year soul ring smoothly, but it had also prevented him from undergoing energy tempering.

When absorbing a soul ring, the tempering of the body by energy was the key to increasing physical strength.

Now that he had skipped this step, it was only natural that his physical strength had not received the proper tempering and improvement.

"That should be the reason." The more Jing Chen thought about it, the more certain he became. Otherwise, there was no way to explain it.

The reason his soul power had barely increased by one level was also because there had been no immense energy within the soul ring.

Without energy entering his body, how could his soul power possibly rise by several levels?

The one level of soul power he had gained was most likely because breaking through the bottleneck by absorbing a soul ring would inevitably raise one's soul power by one level, bringing one into the next stage.

Otherwise, he even suspected that after absorbing this hundred-thousand-year soul ring, his soul power might not have increased by even a single level.

"Is this what they mean by gains always coming with losses?" Jing Chen looked at the blood-red Soul Ring and shook his head with a smile.

He had obtained a Hundred Thousand Year Soul Ring and gained two sufficiently powerful Soul Skills, but he had also lost several levels of Soul Power and bodily attribute enhancements.

Whether he had profited or suffered a loss, he could not say for sure. Still, he did not regret this attempt.

The current outcome was already better than he had expected, so there was no need to ask for more.

As for whether he should continue using this method to absorb Soul Rings in the future, he truly needed to think it over carefully and weigh the gains against the losses.

Having sorted it out, Jing Chen stopped dwelling on the matter and looked ahead.

What lay before him was not Golden Tortoise's corpse, but a Soul Bone radiating brilliant golden light and an irregularly shaped piece of emerald-green metal.

At the sight of these two items, Jing Chen's heart burned. He immediately rose to his feet, nearly losing his balance as his legs, numb from sitting too long, gave way.

Jing Chen endured the tingling sensation and slowly walked forward, his gaze fixed on the two items the entire time.

Once he drew close, he picked up the Soul Bone first. It was relatively large and had a rather unusual shape.

Holding the Soul Bone in both hands, Jing Chen examined it from every angle, surprise appearing on his face.

This Soul Bone was neither a limb bone nor a skull or Torso Bone. Instead, it was shaped like a turtle shell.

It was a perfect miniature version of Golden Tortoise's shell—curved, with numerous raised bumps on its surface, while the patterns between them were dark gold.

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