Snow Empress Spirit, Soul Ring Theory!

Inside the Ice God Temple, the Snow Empress took half a step forward and voluntarily extended her hand, fairer than frost and snow. Her fingers closed around Yun Yi's right hand in a firm grip.

Her palm was freezing, carrying the chill unique to ten-thousand-year glaciers, while Yun Yi's hand was warm and solid. As their skin touched, the difference in temperature stood out starkly beneath the gray glow of the formation's patterns.

The Holy Necromancer Electrolux, hovering in midair, suddenly pressed both hands downward.

The intricate gray soul runes instantly came alive. They spiraled up along the pair's clasped hands, transforming into chains that tightly linked the Snow Empress's true body to that pure-white embryo.

"The contract, arise." Electrolux uttered an obscure incantation.

The Snow Empress closed her eyes and completely lowered the defenses around the source of her spiritual power.

The white light on the surface of her body began to fluctuate violently. The core carrying her seven hundred thousand years of cultivation, memories, and consciousness was forcibly separated from the pure-white embryo.

Her soul transformed into a dazzling pillar of light and shot directly into Yun Yi's brow along the gray bridge of runes.

Outside, the embryo's energy, having lost the guidance of its soul, immediately became extremely unstable and seemed ready to collapse at any moment.

"Elder Yi, purify the remaining energy and turn it into a right leg bone." Yun Yi calmly gave the order. He made a grasping motion with his right hand, and the source power of the Ice Yi Divine Spear transformed into a great net that firmly covered the agitated mass of energy.

Electrolux changed his hand seals, and gray Purifying World Flame rose around the edge of the formation.

The fire, devoid of heat, enveloped the pure-white energy and thoroughly burned away the impurities within it.

In just a few breaths, that enormous mass of energy collapsed and solidified, ultimately becoming a crystalline right leg soul bone with an icy-blue glow flowing within it.

Yun Yi reached out and caught the superb seven-hundred-thousand-year soul bone, then directly pressed it against his right leg.

An icy chill instantly seeped into his bones. The muscles and blood vessels in his right leg opened on their own, accepting this foreign source of extreme ice.

The crisp sounds of bones reforming echoed through the empty hall.

Yun Yi's expression remained calm as he allowed that vast, profound power of ice and snow to replace and reshape the marrow in his right leg.

The soul bone fused seamlessly, but a crisis arose in Yun Yi's sea of consciousness at that very moment.

Just as Electrolux had anticipated, Yun Yi's current spiritual capacity was like a snake trying to swallow an elephant if he forcibly accommodated the soul of a seven-hundred-thousand-year ferocious beast.

The instant the Snow Empress's pillar of soul light crashed into the golden sea of consciousness, monstrous waves surged across the previously tranquil ocean.

The weight of seven hundred thousand years of foundation became a tangible spiritual impact, smashing viciously against the spatial barriers of the sea of consciousness.

Above the golden sky, countless cracks spread wildly like a spiderweb.

It looked as though everything would collapse in the next second, turning Yun Yi into a complete idiot.

Even weakened by the contract, the Snow Empress's enormous soul pressure still carried a crushing force capable of destroying heaven and earth.

At that critical moment, the four divine imprints resting at the highest point of the sea of consciousness awakened simultaneously.

The golden Light Hexagram, the crimson Flame Dragon Mark of the Fire God, the deep-blue Water God Vortex, and the phantom of the Icebound Throne that had only recently taken residence.

The four imprints, representing the laws of first-class main gods, erupted with dazzling divine radiance at once.

They made no unnecessary movements. They simply hovered there as four pillars of light descended vertically, pinning down the four boundaries of the sea of consciousness with perfect precision.

The crumbling spatial barriers were firmly welded in place by those four laws.

The horrifying cracks healed in the blink of an eye beneath the soothing touch of divine light.

Then, the divine might radiated by the four divine imprints formed an invisible Heavenly Net that descended upon the raging pure-white source below.

Under the combined suppression of those four laws, the Snow Empress's soul source had no room to struggle at all.

That crushing pressure, enough to grind mountains and rivers to dust, was forcibly stripped away and crushed by the divine might before finally being transformed into incomparably gentle, pure spiritual power.

The crisis was over. Rather than damaging the sea of consciousness, that gentle power became a powerful driving force.

After absorbing it, the level of the golden ocean began rising rapidly, and its surface expanded outward again and again.

Nourished by this power, Yun Yi's spiritual realm underwent an overbearing leap in growth. His foundation became so profound that even Electrolux marveled repeatedly.

The turmoil in the sea of consciousness completely subsided.

Within the Ice God Temple, the gray light of the formation gradually faded.

The Ice Empress remained in the form of a cute little girl with twin ponytails, pacing anxiously in circles beside Yun Yi.

One moment, she looked at Yun Yi's utterly calm face; the next, she looked at the remnants of the embryo that had already dissipated on the ground. Her little hands were tightly wrung together, her heart in her throat.

At last, waves of icy-blue ripples spread through the air beside Yun Yi.

Specks of pure-white snowflakes appeared out of thin air, gathering and intertwining in midair.

As the light faded, a pair of bare feet gently landed upon the dark ice floor.

The Snow Empress's figure slowly emerged.

She still wore that flowing white dress, and her ankle-length white hair drifted in the cold wind within the hall. Her sky-blue eyes held a trace of confusion at having only just been reborn.

She lowered her head to look at her translucent hands. The tangible sensation made her clearly realize that she had truly survived in the wondrous form of a spirit.

"Xue'er!"

The Ice Empress cried out joyfully and lunged forward, wrapping her arms around the Snow Empress's slender waist. She buried her face deeply in the soft fabric of her clothes, tears of joy glistening at the corners of her eyes.

The Snow Empress came back to herself from the novel experience. Looking at the little girl acting spoiled in her arms, an indulgent smile blossomed across her cool face.

She raised a hand and gently stroked the Ice Empress's emerald-green hair.

The two stood embracing.

One was a sweet and lovely girl with twin ponytails, while the other was a noble and sacred goddess of ice and snow.

Within the empty Ice God Temple, the sight became the most vivid and eye-catching scenery there.

After soothing the excited Ice Empress, the Snow Empress turned to Yun Yi, who stood nearby.

By now, she understood the profound mysteries of the spirit system.

It was not merely a shelter from heavenly tribulations, but a miracle capable of perfectly merging humans and beasts.

Not only was her consciousness completely intact, but through Yun Yi's sea of consciousness, she could even sense the flow of the laws of this world with greater clarity.

"This method of soul contracts truly steals the creation of heaven and earth," the Snow Empress praised sincerely.

"I can feel that my energy can be controlled precisely. As long as your body can withstand it, I can provide you with multiple soul rings in stages and completely resolve the future needs of your ice-element martial soul."

She paused, voicing the question in her heart.

"Yet you only intend for Bing'er and me to provide one soul ring each. Why? With our source power supporting you, you would have no need to hunt any other ice-element soul beasts. Why would you refuse something with nothing but benefits?"

Hearing the Snow Empress's question, the Ice Empress also poked her head out of the Snow Empress's arms, her amber-like eyes filled with curiosity.

Faced with the two ferocious beasts' confusion, Yun Yi raised a hand to straighten his collar, one brow lifting slightly.

"You're thinking about this too simply." Yun Yi spread his hands and spoke in a complaining tone.

"You think I don't want free, ready-made soul rings? I'm being careful with my resources."

He pointed at his chest.

"There are four ultimate attributes within my body at once: light, fire, ice, and water. While they grant me the combat power to sweep aside everything among those of the same rank, their demands on the purity of Soul Power are unreasonable to the extreme."

Yun Yi walked to the edge of the Icebound Throne's steps, kicked at the broken ice on the ground, and continued airing his grievances.

"An ordinary soul master with a single ultimate attribute already cultivates at an unbearably slow pace between Rank 30 and Rank 70. What about me? I have to endure four times the drag on my cultivation! These four living ancestors purify my Soul Power every day. If I relied solely on meditation to absorb the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, who knew when I'd ever become a Soul Sage?"

He turned around and looked at the increasingly stiff expressions of the two Ice Empresses before delivering his final conclusion.

"So I have to absorb the soul rings of powerful soul beasts and use the massive energy contained within them to forcibly accumulate Soul Power and push my cultivation realm higher. If I split your energy between several soul rings, that means wasting slots I could use to absorb new external energy. Understand? I'm saving those soul ring slots so I can fleece the outside world and use other people's energy to feed these four picky attributes of mine."

That rather ostentatious explanation left the two Ice Empresses completely speechless.

The Snow Empress opened her mouth, but for a long while, she could not find a response.

After ruling the Far North for hundreds of thousands of years, this was the first time she had seen someone speak so righteously about cultivating slowly, even treating the hunting of soul beasts and absorption of soul rings as nothing more than a means of replenishing energy.

The Ice Empress's eye twitched even more. Inwardly, she cursed this brat for taking advantage and still acting innocent. He clearly possessed monstrous talent, yet he put on the aggrieved look of someone who had suffered immensely.

Mu En, standing nearby, immediately stroked his chin and laughed after hearing the explanation.

"So that's how it is." Mu En nodded with great satisfaction, his gaze toward Yun Yi filled with approval.

"Junior Brother's idea of borrowing strength to build his foundation is truly ingenious. Reserving soul ring positions to plunder outside resources—this sort of boldness and calculation greatly pleases this old man."