Soul spirits

"Hello there, young lady of the Qian Family."

Lin Xiao smiled and waved to her, putting on a thoroughly welcoming air.

Looking at the man before her, whose manner was as pleasant as a spring breeze, Qian Renxue felt the pressure mount another notch.

She realized she could not see through him.

He could even state her name with perfect accuracy.

Lin Xiao rose another level in Qian Renxue's estimation.

Noticing something amiss, recognizing her identity, and accurately naming her.

Those three progressively deeper steps made Lin Xiao seem increasingly mysterious in Qian Renxue's eyes.

Her throat bobbed slightly, and Qian Renxue spoke, testing the waters.

"May I ask what you wished to discuss, Young Master Lin Xiao?"

Looking at the little angel, who was buckling under the pressure and wound tight with nerves, Lin Xiao watched her.

He pretended to ponder, then made a show of taking something out of the box behind him.

"Originally, someone at your level wasn't qualified to speak to me directly. My intention was only to draw Qian Daoliu here.

"After all, I'd dropped such a bombshell. Whether you believed it or not, you should logically have written your grandfather a letter first.

"But I never expected you to be so bold as to come straight here with two trash Titled Douluos."

Snake Lance lowered his head slightly at the side without saying anything.

Pufferfish, however, was displeased. A Titled Douluo was not to be insulted.

That was the most basic of common knowledge in the soul master world.

He frowned slightly, about to make an issue of it, but suddenly remembered the information Snake Lance had brought back earlier.

In an instant, he behaved himself.

He was a Titled Douluo, with the Worship Hall backing him.

And this time, he was serving as the Young Master's guard.

He was used to being arrogant.

On top of that, his pufferfish martial soul's stomach had taken over his brain.

For a moment, he had forgotten that the Spirit Pagoda was a monster capable of contending with the entire Spirit Hall.

Beside him, Snake Lance watched his old companion, wondering what had made him so bold.

Only for him to turn cowardly a second later.

Like a Sichuan opera face-changing performance, he cycled through four or five expressions in a single second.

Snake Lance planned to give him a good mocking once they were outside.

With that little disturbance ending before it could begin, things settled down.

The two followed Qian Renxue's gaze.

Lin Xiao chose that exact moment to continue his introduction.

"This is a hundred-year soul spirit. Consider it both a gesture of sincerity and a first-meeting gift for Miss Qian.

"After you return, have the Titled Douluo beside you take this to your grandfather.

"Just ask him to come here.

"I need to discuss the specifics of our cooperation with him."

Qian Renxue looked at the glass orb before her. There seemed to be a soul beast inside.

It gave off a faint yellow glow.

She was utterly puzzled.

"A soul spirit? What is that?"

Lin Xiao placed the hundred-year soul spirit on the table beside him and snapped his fingers. The large screen behind him abruptly lit up.

"The functions of soul spirits, and their epoch-making significance."

He tapped a finger, and a line of text appeared before them.

As the name suggests, a soul spirit is a soul beast condensed in soul form within a specially made soul spirit vessel.

A single soul spirit can provide a soul master with one or even several soul rings.

It can also be summoned to fight alongside its soul master.

Depending on their spiritual power, a soul master can possess several soul spirits of different or identical ranks.

Compared with soul rings obtained through hunting, a soul spirit's soul rings are more compatible and more powerful.

Every soul spirit is made from the soul of a soul beast.

The Spirit Pagoda is currently located in the Far North and has established preliminary cooperation with the Star Dou Great Forest.

Experiments have now achieved complete success.

A soul beast whose soul is made into a soul spirit will separate off another portion of its soul to live within the Spirit Pagoda's Spirit Ascension Platform. When its soul master dies, the soul spirit may choose to dissipate on its own, or return to the Spirit Pagoda's Spirit Ascension Platform after inheriting one-tenth of the cultivation it gained.

The Spirit Ascension Platform is a composite recreation of every soul beast forest habitat across the entire Douluo Continent.

Whether they fly in the sky, run on land, or swim in the water, regardless of the soul beast soul's attribute,

they can all find the place best suited for them to live.

Soul beasts within the Spirit Ascension Platform are undying and indestructible. As long as the Spirit Pagoda remains, they can revive infinitely.

They may choose to battle soul masters who enter for training, improving themselves in the process.

They may choose to find a suitable soul master and voluntarily become their soul spirit.

They may also choose to reconstruct their physical bodies while retaining 80% of their cultivation in soul spirit form.

Soul beasts and soul masters will no longer be enemies, but partners who can truly fight shoulder to shoulder.

By the time the text finished displaying, Qian Renxue and the others were utterly stunned by this soul spirit system.

What did he mean, he'd quietly resolved the conflict between humans and soul beasts that had lasted ten thousand years?

What did he mean, as long as you had enough talent, you wouldn't have to risk hunting soul beasts-they would come knocking of their own accord to sacrifice themselves?

What did he mean, the Spirit Ascension Platform could even raise soul spirit ranks?

Qian Renxue felt as though ten thousand questions filled her heart.

She held one hand before her chest, curling it loosely, then spoke slowly, puzzled and a little nervous.

"What do you mean by the Spirit Ascension Platform raising soul spirit ranks?"

"Exactly what it sounds like. A ten-year soul spirit can provide one soul ring, a hundred-year one two, and a thousand-year one three.

"You enter the Spirit Ascension Platform and kill those soul beasts.

"One percent of their cultivation will be fed back to you.

"As long as your spiritual power is sufficient and you've absorbed enough years of cultivation,

"your soul spirit will naturally advance, from a hundred years to a thousand, from a thousand to ten thousand...

"And those soul beasts exist primarily in the form of soul data.

"After you kill them, they can all revive. They merely lose 1% of their cultivation.

"There is already competition among the soul beasts inside, as well as their own cultivation.

"If a soul beast can knock you out, it can also receive additional cultivation as a reward from the Spirit Ascension Platform.

"The soul spirits and soul rings within you won't lose any cultivation.

"We cover that portion."

Qian Renxue's lips parted slightly as she struggled to digest this information.

Beside her, Snake Lance and Pufferfish had fallen silent.

They could already imagine a future where every soul master's soul rings were ten-thousand-year or hundred-thousand-year ones.

Meanwhile, the two of them were still like primitive men, with hundred-year first and second soul rings.

But despite their shock, none of them fully believed it.

After all, it defied common sense too much.

Lin Xiao understood that as well.

So he gave Zhang Lexuan, standing beside him, a look.

Soon, Shui Bing'er was brought over, her expression innocent and clear.

She looked at the people before her and tilted her head, puzzled.

"Young Master, what's the matter?"

Lin Xiao rubbed her head. "Release your soul rings."

Shui Bing'er nodded blankly.

Her ice phoenix martial soul emerged.

Yellow, black, black, black, black.

The force of her Soul King cultivation washed over them.

"Since Bing'er's first soul ring was obtained through hunting, improving it will require prolonged nourishment.

"And even then, it will probably only reach a thousand or ten thousand years at most.

"But starting with her second soul ring, I gave her a soul spirit.

"It was raised all the way to ten thousand years, resulting in what you see now."

Now Qian Renxue believed him completely.

She was also deeply envious. They were both Soul Kings, yet she had been born with level-twenty soul power and was so many years older.

Even her soul rings were only the standard two yellows, two purples, and one black.

Thinking of it that way, she felt a little embarrassed.

Lin Xiao spoke again.

"Young Lady Qian, you have the Worship Hall behind you. Instead of focusing on your cultivation, you're here playing house as a spy..."

He said no more, but Qian Renxue understood the implication in his meaningful tone perfectly.

Qian Renxue's face reddened slightly.

She, too, seemed to feel that she had been rather foolish. He really did have a point.

Never mind the fact that she already had two Titled Douluos with her.

She could summon any one of her grandfathers from the Worship Hall, and both great empires could be destroyed.

But when she remembered that this was yet another order from that madwoman, she could only shake her head, her eyes filled with resentment.