"I never expected this..."
As the motes of light flowed into Kikyo's body, the spiritual power within her steadily grew. She had not expected that purifying these souls would come with such a benefit.
The ascension of just one or two souls might not have mattered much, but there were far too many souls here. The light they left behind as they ascended gathered little by little, greatly increasing even the spiritual power of a great priestess like Kikyo.
And perhaps because of the Yin-Yang Separation Technique, the side effect that had prevented Hourai people like Kikyo and Fujiwara no Mokou from growing stronger had been broken. Though there was still some effect, at least she could continue increasing her strength.
Once Kikyo had absorbed every mote of light, her spiritual power had visibly increased, equivalent to at least several years of arduous cultivation.
Only after digesting that spiritual power did Kikyo open her eyes.
"How do you feel?"
"Not bad! It seems to be their gift!"
Feeling her strengthened spiritual power, Kikyo recalled that after she had separated out her dark side, her purifying spiritual power had become refined. Then, with the restoration of the Hourai Elixir, her strength had surged once. Yet in the nearly twenty years since then, her strength had not changed much.
Perhaps her strength had reached a peak and required a longer period of accumulation. This time had been an unexpected opportunity.
"This is a stroke of fortune unique to you, Kikyo. No one else has your purifying spiritual power. They can't send so many souls to Buddhahood at once, nor could they achieve this effect."
"Come to think of it, Panther King has quite a few Black Jade under his command. If you purified all of them, your spiritual power might even double,