Nuoding City.
Nuoding Academy.
At that moment, inside a private student dormitory reserved for paying students, Ji Yang was tossing a piece of thousand-year whale rubber into an alchemy furnace.
Strangely, this alchemy furnace was not a physical object, but his martial soul.
It was also the cheat granted to him, a transmigrator from Blue Star whose parents had both died-the Eight Trigrams Alchemy Furnace.
As its name suggested, this martial soul could refine pills just like a real Eight Trigrams Alchemy Furnace.
In fact, as long as he tossed in suitable ingredients, the Eight Trigrams Alchemy Furnace martial soul would automatically refine them into the corresponding pills, without even requiring any supplementary materials. It was incredibly quick and convenient.
Most importantly, these pills had no restrictions or side effects whatsoever.
That was precisely why Ji Yang, despite having only level-one innate soul power, had raised his soul power cultivation to that of a level-ten Prospective Soul Master in just one short year.
The source of the pills that helped him raise his soul power cultivation so rapidly was, of course, soul beasts.
Among the pills produced by refining soul beasts with the Eight Trigrams Alchemy Furnace martial soul were Soul Power Pills.
Although absorbing Soul Power Pills could not directly raise his cultivation realm, they could increase his soul power cultivation in the shortest possible time.
Unfortunately, because his funds were limited, the soul beasts Ji Yang refined most often were the most common and cheapest ones: Soft Bone Rabbits.
Otherwise, he would certainly have needed even less time.
As for now, since Ji Yang was refining whale rubber with his Eight Trigrams Alchemy Furnace martial soul, his goal was naturally to produce a Whale Rubber Pill that could strengthen his body.
Compared with whale rubber itself, Whale Rubber Pills not only strengthened the body more effectively, but also caused no burning heat as a side effect, nor would the body develop resistance to them.
Unfortunately, although the true use of whale rubber had yet to be discovered in this era and its price was not particularly high, it was not cheap either.
With Ji Yang's financial resources, he simply could not afford whale rubber aged ten thousand years or more.
Fortunately, thousand-year Whale Rubber Pills were already sufficient for him.
As long as he had enough thousand-year whale rubber, strengthening his body would still be fairly easy.
Boom-!
As Ji Yang dropped the thousand-year whale rubber into his Eight Trigrams Alchemy Furnace martial soul, the flames inside surged relentlessly.
A moment later, a golden pill floated out of the furnace and hovered before Ji Yang.
It was a thousand-year Whale Rubber Pill, refined from thousand-year whale rubber.
A thousand-year Whale Rubber Pill could strengthen the body enough to withstand at least another five hundred years of soul ring age, and the older the thousand-year whale rubber was, the stronger the pill's effect.
Counting the effects of this Whale Rubber Pill, Ji Yang could withstand a first soul ring at least four thousand years old.
That was truly terrifying.
Still, Ji Yang was not particularly concerned about the age of his soul rings.
Besides Soul Power Pills, he could also refine Soul Ring Pills from soul beasts.
Soul Ring Pills could not only grant someone a soul ring of the corresponding cultivation realm, but could also increase the age of their existing soul rings.
In other words, even without relying on divine trials to increase his soul rings' ages, he could freely raise them himself.
Even if the soul ring he absorbed was a little younger, it would not make much difference to him.
Of course, that being said, Ji Yang generally had no interest in relatively young soul rings.
Only if a soul beast's species, bloodline, or other qualities were truly extraordinary, with its age being its sole shortcoming, would he make an exception, absorb its ring, and gradually increase its age.
"No Soul Power Pill? Looks like this piece of thousand-year whale rubber wasn't very fresh!"
Ji Yang muttered to himself as he looked at the thousand-year Whale Rubber Pill before him.
Besides strengthening the body, whale rubber could also increase soul power cultivation.
The conditions were that the whale rubber had to be fresh enough, and the beast it came from powerful enough.
Previously, Ji Yang had refined a Soul Power Pill as well as a Whale Rubber Pill from a piece of thousand-year whale rubber.
The increase in soul power cultivation it provided had even exceeded that of a Soul Power Pill refined from a ten-year Soft Bone Rabbit.
Since this piece of thousand-year whale rubber had not yielded a corresponding Soul Power Pill, it clearly was not very fresh.
Or perhaps the whale soul beast it came from had not been particularly powerful while alive.
Although he felt a little disappointed, Ji Yang did not dwell on it.
He simply swallowed the Whale Rubber Pill to strengthen his body.
Before long, his physical strength increased noticeably, leaving him very satisfied.
"Now all I need is a soul ring!"
The corners of Ji Yang's mouth curved slightly upward.
As far as soul rings went, he actually already had some.
They were the soul rings of the Soft Bone Rabbits he had refined earlier.
In other words, the Soft Bone Rabbit Soul Ring Pills he now possessed.
But Ji Yang naturally had no interest in these mere ten-year soul rings.
Besides, Soft Bone Rabbit soul rings were utterly unsuited to his Eight Trigrams Alchemy Furnace martial soul.
What he needed was a soul ring from a fire-type soul beast.
Or, alternatively, a soul beast with the metal attribute.
The reason was simple!
His Eight Trigrams Alchemy Furnace martial soul possessed dual ultimate attributes: ultimate fire and ultimate metal.
He had discovered this by accident while sparring with other students at Nuoding Academy.
Both fire-type martial souls and metal tool martial souls were deeply afraid of his Eight Trigrams Alchemy Furnace martial soul.
This was undoubtedly the best proof that his Eight Trigrams Alchemy Furnace martial soul possessed the dual ultimate attributes of ultimate fire and ultimate metal.
After discovering this, Ji Yang had been excited for quite some time. At one point, he had even wondered whether he was the one holding the Eight Trigrams Alchemy Furnace martial soul back.
Otherwise, how could his dual-ultimate-attribute Eight Trigrams Alchemy Furnace martial soul have only level-one innate soul power?
Fortunately, his Eight Trigrams Alchemy Furnace martial soul had heaven-defying abilities. Otherwise, given his innate soul power and the slow cultivation speed of an ultimate martial soul, it was uncertain whether he could have reached his current level as a level-ten Prospective Soul Master even by the age of twelve.
"Knock, knock-"
Just as Ji Yang was thinking about this, someone suddenly knocked on his door.
"Ji Yang, someone outside is looking for you. They said they've brought what you needed!"
A middle-aged man's voice came from outside.
Ji Yang knew that voice well. It belonged to Director Su, Nuoding Academy's director of studies.
Because Ji Yang was diligent and eager to learn, Director Su looked after him, and the two had developed a very good relationship.
Director Su had even promised to help him hunt a soul beast so that he could absorb a fairly decent soul ring.
Even though he did not really need the help, he still kept that kindness and favor firmly in his heart.
"All right, I understand. Thank you, Director Su!"
Ji Yang replied instinctively.
At that moment, his eyes lit up with delight.
The reason was simple: his soul ring had arrived.
Even before he had broken through to become a level-ten Prospective Soul Master, he had already begun making arrangements for his first soul ring.
He had paid a hefty sum to commission several well-known Soul Hunting Squads in Nuoding City to keep an eye out for and capture soul beasts in the Soul Hunting Forest.
Since the soul beasts he wanted were not particularly strong, ranging from ten to a hundred years old, and only needed to have the right attributes, the Soul Hunting Squads had readily agreed. His generous payment certainly helped.
Now, at last, their efforts had borne fruit, and they had delivered the soul beasts he needed.
With that, he could take another step forward and become a true One-Ring Soul Master.
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