Soul Beast

Biodata

Power Progression

Soul Beasts’ cultivation is measured in years. Rare resources can raise a living beast’s cultivation, changing the age of the Soul Ring it will provide 14 18 25.

Cultivation and Nurturing

• Cultivation age is not simply elapsed lifespan: a compatible treasure can add hundreds or thousands of years of cultivation in a short period 14.
• Consuming compatible Soul Beasts can also increase cultivation. A poison-type beast devouring the Death Spider Emperor’s hundred-thousand-year corpse could potentially gain ten or twenty thousand years; the Soul Devouring Demon Spider was deliberately strengthened by feeding it another poisonous spider 109.
• Healing and life energy can nourish plant-type Soul Beasts. Ye Lingling’s care for a Nine Heart Begonia suggested a method of increasing its cultivation while subtly strengthening her own related martial soul 55.
• Lu Xuan cultivated the Tree of Life, Nine Heart Begonia, and Blue Silver Emperor at the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well as future Soul Ring candidates. Ye Lingling and Ye Renxin both helped nourish the Tree of Life and Blue Silver Emperor, although the plants remained too young for the intended rings 96 97.
• Lu Xuan intended to raise the Blue Silver Emperor to a hundred thousand years before requesting her sacrifice, offering to help resolve her old grievances in exchange. This remained a cultivation plan rather than a completed advancement 96.
• The Jade Phosphorus Seven-Absolute Flower was reserved for Dugu Yan’s Fifth Soul Ring rather than used prematurely for her fourth. Dugu Bo collected poisonous Soul Beast remains to nourish it further 97 109 112.

Soul Rings and Bones

• A slain Soul Beast leaves a Soul Ring that a Soul Master can absorb. The beast’s age affects the strain of absorption, while its traits and compatibility influence the skill gained 4 18 25.
• A Soul Master’s body limits the age of ring they can withstand. Training, medicinal refinement, and stronger physical foundations allow attempts at older rings 3 18 38.
• Some beasts also leave Soul Bones. Documented finds include a Golden Earth Dragon Torso Bone and a Blue Silver King Right Arm Bone; a thirty-thousand-year Moonlight Spirit Deer left none 38 39 45.
• The group avoids killing Soul Beasts without reason, generally driving away those that attack them 40.
• The ten-thousand-year threshold introduces an additional mental danger. Lu Xuan’s 9,999-year Rouge Dragon ring contained violent Soul Power but lacked the soul shock associated with a true ten-thousand-year ring 25.
• External Soul Bones can grow and evolve with their hosts. The Rouge Dragon produced Lu Xuan’s left-eye External Soul Bone, whose potential was compared favorably with Dugu Bo’s Medusa Skull 25 26.
• A single beast can exceptionally produce more than one Soul Bone. The hundred-thousand-year Death Spider Emperor yielded both left and right arm bones, which were secured for Dugu Yan 109.
• A Soul Ring and Soul Bone from the same hundred-thousand-year beast can mutually nourish one another, substantially strengthening their recipient 78.
• Sacrifice has an extremely high chance of forming a Soul Bone. The Peach-Rhyme Immortal Bamboo deliberately exhausted its origin while attempting to condense a right-eye External Soul Bone, successfully producing the Illusory Peach-Bamboo Right-Eye Soul Bone 72 74 107.
• Soul Bone production remains uncertain even for powerful species. Lu Xuan considered a Dark Gold Terrorclaw Bear a promising source of an External Soul Bone at sufficiently high cultivation, but judged the chances from a specimen barely over a thousand years old too low to justify hunting it 112.

Preserved Essence and Other Resources

The hundred-thousand-year Azure Jade Bird provides an unusual alternative to an ordinary fresh corpse. After death, its flesh, feathers, and meridians gradually turn to jade, preserving its Soul Power, Spiritual Origin, and Spatial Attribute inside a lifelike statue. Its original consciousness dissipates, but its power remains sealed within the jade 61.

Lu Xuan and Ye Renxin purchased such an ornament for 2,100 Gold Soul Coins. Lu Xuan eventually activated it by crushing Soul Bones and infusing their essence into it; a seventeen-thousand-year King of the Earth Soul Bone completed the process. The released brain-shaped object became the Azure Jade Whirlwind Brain Core Bone, granting mental protection, Spiritual Space, and Azure Jade Spatial Escape 49 61 62.

Not all valuable Soul Beast resources require immediate ring absorption. A Nine Heart Begonia produced a green fruit at considerable cost to its vital essence, and Lu Xuan later chose to plant the resulting Nine Heart Begonia Sacred Fruit. He also discovered a cache of Soul Bones and Soul Tools in a Rock-Dwelling Burrowing Mole den, including more than a dozen hundred-year bones, thirty-nine thousand-year bones, five ten-thousand-year bones, and an External Soul Bone 56 59.

Notable Soul Beasts

Intelligence and Communication

Soul Beasts can understand human speech, although most below ten thousand years cannot formulate words clearly. Their communication often consists of instincts and the thoughts carried by those instincts rather than fluent speech 56.

Lu Xuan’s Language Proficiency allows him to understand Soul Beast language. He initially overlooked this application, discovering it when he understood the Seven-Colored Rainbow Phosphorus Serpent’s hissing. Even with this ability, interpreting a less articulate beast’s inner voice requires patience 55 56.

Intelligence and mental resistance vary considerably between species and individuals:

• The Bloodthirsty Mad Bull’s powerful body contrasts with its dull mind, making it particularly vulnerable to mental domination 57.
• The ninety-five-thousand-year Blue Silver King planned deception, recruited outside beasts, and controlled venomous creatures as a defensive reserve 73.
• The fifty-thousand-year Ginseng King possessed intelligence and spiritual reserves beyond ordinary beasts of the same age, initially resisting Lu Xuan’s mental confinement 108.
• The forty-five-thousand-year Jade Phosphorus Lizard possessed strong mental resilience, described as exceeding that of plant Soul Beasts, although Lu Xuan ultimately suppressed it 112.

Hundred-thousand-year Soul Beasts can also appear in human form. Ah Rou had done so, while Xiao Wu retained her original rabbit body; Ah Rou’s transformation meant she could no longer wield her full former combat strength 105 113.

Sacrifice and Rebirth

Sacrifice transfers a Soul Beast’s life, soul, and origin power to a Soul Master. Although conventionally associated with highly intelligent, high-cultivation beasts, Lu Xuan explains that any Soul Beast with awakened intelligence can theoretically perform it. Its rarity also reflects self-preservation: increased intelligence generally makes beasts less willing to surrender their lives 69.

Documented sacrifices are not restricted to the hundred-thousand-year tier. The Clear-Verdant Spirit-Horned Deer agreed to sacrifice itself despite being a thousand-year beast, the Peach-Rhyme Immortal Bamboo sacrificed itself at thirty-nine thousand years, and Lu Xuan compelled a forty-five-thousand-year Jade Phosphorus Lizard to begin the process 69 72 112.

Negotiated Sacrifice

• The Clear-Verdant Spirit-Horned Deer offered its sacrifice after asking to eat the Spirit-Gathering Cloud-Milk Flower. Lu Xuan initially worried that the herb would increase its cultivation by at least two or three thousand years, potentially placing an ordinary ring absorption beyond Ye Lingling’s tolerance 69.
• Lu Xuan obtained the Peach-Rhyme Immortal Bamboo’s cooperation through medicinal herbs and a promise to plant its surviving seed at the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well 65 69.
• Dugu Bo and Ye Renxin persuaded the dying hundred-thousand-year Lone Bamboo Emperor to sacrifice itself to Ye Renxin 73.

Mental Compulsion

Lu Xuan’s Peach-Bamboo God Imprisonment can remove a target’s independent will and force obedience, including a commanded sacrifice. Its principal restriction is that the combined mental power of all controlled targets cannot exceed one-tenth of his own 74.

Before his later improvements, Lu Xuan could reliably compel non-mental-attribute Soul Beasts of roughly twenty to thirty thousand years to sacrifice themselves. Subsequent encounters demonstrate his ability to confront the fifty-thousand-year Ginseng King’s spiritual defenses and suppress the forty-five-thousand-year Jade Phosphorus Lizard 96 97 108 112.

Survival Through Seeds

Plant-type Soul Beasts can leave seeds as a route to renewed life after sacrifice. The Peach-Rhyme Immortal Bamboo preserved an essence seed, which Lu Xuan planted beside the Divine Black Jade Bamboo Shoot so their roots could grow together. The ultimate result of their symbiosis remained unknown 68 69 74.

This method does not directly apply to animal-type Soul Beasts. Lu Xuan’s suggestion that the deer preserve its soul through rebirth encountered the fundamental difficulty that it had no seed to leave behind 68.

Ecology and Human Interaction

Soul Beasts inhabit forests and other suitable environments, with documented searches occurring in Sunset Forest, Star Dou Forest, and a volcanic region of the Star Luo Empire. Particular targets can be rare enough that even an extensive search produces no suitable ring candidate 3 41 97 98.

Predation and Cooperation

Soul Beasts employ more than straightforward physical attacks. A three-thousand-year Man Faced Spider was suspected of using a trapped Emerald Jade Cicada as bait, while the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger’s presence prompted multiple powerful forest beasts to cooperate against it. Dugu Bo warned that those combatants were also watching the human party and could turn on it together if it intervened 3 46.

Compatible flesh and origin energy are valuable food resources. The Death Spider Emperor’s corpse attracted beasts hoping to increase their cultivation, while the Jade Phosphorus Lizard’s sacrifice drew nearby beasts toward the released essence. Dugu Bo established a poison perimeter to prevent interference, killing many weaker creatures while more resistant ones remained at its edge 109 113.

Captivity, Trade, and Control

• Rare beasts are captured and kept alive for future rings, as with the Rainbow Dragon, Rouge Dragon, and Seven-Colored Rainbow Phosphorus Serpent brought back by Zhao Yan 15 21.
• Plant-type Soul Beasts can be auctioned as living collections. The Rosewood Spirit Herb Display contained plants between ten and a hundred years old, including a Tree of Life sapling, Stone-Pattern Jade Zhi, and Morinda Root. Most buyers dismissed their immediate usefulness, but Lu Xuan and Ye Renxin valued their long-term cultivation potential 49.
• Mental control enables uses beyond ring acquisition. Lu Xuan employed the Bloodthirsty Mad Bull as transport, Rock-Dwelling Burrowing Moles as guides, and more than twenty thousand-year flying Soul Beasts as scouts throughout Sunset Forest 57 59 98.
• The party continued to avoid indiscriminate slaughter during its later Star Dou Forest expedition, sparing unsuitable beasts such as the young Dark Gold Terrorclaw Bear. Poisonous attackers were killed and their remains collected as fertilizer for the Jade Phosphorus Seven-Absolute Flower 112.

Lake of Life

The Lake of Life is associated with Star Dou Forest’s most powerful inhabitants. The Sky Azure Bull Python, Titan Giant Ape, and two hundred-thousand-year Soft Bone Rabbits formed a formidable territorial group that the hunters considered beyond the reach of only one or two Titled Douluo 105.

During the later expedition, the forest’s leading Ferocious Beasts—including Di Tian, Xiong Jun, the Myriad Demon King, the Three-Headed Red Mastiff, and Bi Ji—were confined beneath the frozen lake by their lord’s prohibition. They could not intervene against the outsiders. Bi Ji was particularly concerned for her unprotected clansmen, while Di Tian prevented the Three-Eyed Golden Lion from attempting to leave 112.