Ji Yang had not suddenly grown softhearted and abandoned his plan to refine this Flame Bird into his first soul ring.
Rather, at that moment, he had come up with a better idea.
He could use his Eight Trigrams Alchemy Furnace martial soul to refine this Flame Bird into a soul spirit.
Soul spirits were a development that emerged after Douluo II, created by the chosen son of destiny Huo Yuhao's walking cheat, the Holy Necromancer Electrolux. They had remained enduringly popular through the eras of Douluo Dalu III: The Legend of the Dragon King and Douluo IV.
Compared with ordinary soul rings, soul spirits could not only provide soul masters with more soul rings, sparing them the need to hunt more soul beasts for new ones, but were also far more flexible and versatile.
Most importantly, soul spirits absorbed by soul masters could fight alongside them as companions.
That was something soul rings could not do.
As for whether his Eight Trigrams Alchemy Furnace martial soul could refine soul beasts into corresponding Soul Spirit Pills?
It could.
As long as he consciously intended to refine a soul beast into a special Soul Spirit Pill, the pill produced by the Eight Trigrams Alchemy Furnace martial soul would change accordingly.
However, a soul beast that could originally yield a Soul Power Pill, Soul Ring Pill, Soul Bone Pill, Soul Skill Pill, and Soul Body Pill, Soul God Pill, and Soul Blood Pill corresponding to its physical strength, spiritual power, and bloodline would instead be refined by the Eight Trigrams Alchemy Furnace martial soul into a single Soul Spirit Pill combining all seven pills.
Ji Yang had previously experimented with a Soft Bone Rabbit and successfully refined a Soft Bone Rabbit Soul Spirit Pill with thirty years of cultivation.
However, its attributes did not suit him, and he thought little of it, so he had not used it. It had been left in a corner of his Storage Soul Tool.
This Flame Bird, on the other hand, was an excellent match for him and an ideal choice for refining into a corresponding soul spirit.
Moreover, soul spirits could increase their cultivation age through Soul Ring Pills refined by his Eight Trigrams Alchemy Furnace martial soul, without relying on the Spirit Pagoda's Spirit Ascension Platform from the era of Douluo Dalu III: The Legend of the Dragon King. That left him with even less reason to hesitate.
"That's what I'll do!"
With that thought, Ji Yang made up his mind.
He opened the iron cage, took out the seemingly dying Flame Bird, which was only the size of a fist, and held it in his hand.
Judging by its condition, the Flame Bird had clearly suffered serious injuries.
It also seemed that Luo Yuexuan and the others had given it some sort of anesthetic.
That was why Ji Yang could handle the Flame Bird so easily.
Otherwise, even a soul beast with fifty years of cultivation was beyond what an aspiring soul master like him, who had yet to acquire a soul ring, could afford to provoke.
"Refine!"
Ji Yang tossed the Flame Bird in his hand into his Eight Trigrams Alchemy Furnace martial soul.
Boom-
As the flames began burning inside the Eight Trigrams Alchemy Furnace, the helpless Flame Bird thrown into it was immediately refined, unable even to let out a scream.
That alone showed how efficient and powerful the Eight Trigrams Alchemy Furnace's refining ability was.
Unless a living creature's strength far surpassed Ji Yang's, any creature thrown into his Eight Trigrams Alchemy Furnace martial soul would be refined in an instant, with virtually no chance to resist or escape.
Hum-
A dozen or so breaths later, the flames within the Eight Trigrams Alchemy Furnace martial soul gradually died out.
At the same moment, a fiery-red Soul Spirit Pill floated out of the furnace and hovered before Ji Yang.
It was the Flame Bird Soul Spirit Pill.
Yet rather than calling it a Flame Bird Soul Spirit Pill, it would be more accurate to call it a Phoenix Bird Soul Spirit Pill.
The surface of this Flame Bird Soul Spirit Pill actually bore phoenix patterns, attesting to its extraordinary nature.
"Oh? Was that trace of phoenix bloodline inside the Flame Bird awakened? It seems this Flame Bird's phoenix bloodline was much stronger than that of other Flame Birds, and its bloodline power had already begun to stir."
Ji Yang was both surprised and delighted by the sight.
Of course, the Eight Trigrams Alchemy Furnace martial soul had probably played no small part as well.
The Eight Trigrams Alchemy Furnace had a certain "upgrading" effect: the original ingredients would receive some enhancement in the pills it refined.
That was also the key to the Flame Bird Soul Spirit Pill becoming a Phoenix Bird Soul Spirit Pill.
Still, if this Flame Bird's phoenix bloodline had not been strong enough, it could not have produced a Phoenix Bird Soul Spirit Pill. At most, it would have yielded a Flame Bird Soul Spirit Pill containing more phoenix power.
"Let's see how much of a boost you can give me!"
Ji Yang immediately swallowed the Phoenix Bird Soul Spirit Pill and sat cross-legged on his bed, quickly closing his eyes to refine its medicinal power.
As he rapidly refined the Phoenix Bird Soul Spirit Pill's medicinal power, a white soul ring soon appeared around his body.
The entire process was extremely quick, taking only a few minutes at most.
There were reasons for that.
First, this Flame Bird had only fifty years of cultivation, making its soul spirit safe and quick to absorb;
Second, compared with normal soul spirits, Soul Spirit Pills were gentler and safer to absorb, without any adverse effects or backlash.
Only when a Soul Spirit Pill's cultivation age exceeded the limits of the user's physical and spiritual strength would absorption fail and cause injury.
Even then, the resulting harm would still be less than that caused by failing to absorb a soul spirit.
The same went for Soul Ring Pills!
That was one of the advantages of Soul Ring Pills and Soul Spirit Pills.
"About halfway through rank twelve in soul power-a gain of roughly two and a half ranks. Not bad!"
Ji Yang opened his eyes and looked with satisfaction at the Eight Trigrams Alchemy Furnace martial soul before him and the white soul ring around his body.
Naturally, that increase could not all have come from the Phoenix Bird Soul Spirit Pill.
The Phoenix Bird Soul Spirit Pill could have increased his soul power by half a rank at most. After all, it was only a fifty-year soul spirit.
A gain of half a rank was already quite good.
The remaining two ranks of soul power had actually come from the Soul Power Pills he had used earlier but had yet to absorb completely.
There was also the soul power he had accumulated through his daily meditation.
Even after reaching a bottleneck, before acquiring a new soul ring, soul masters could still accumulate and increase their soul power through meditation and cultivation.
However, the speed and quality of that cultivation fell far short of the results they could achieve after acquiring a soul ring.
If one could absorb a soul ring early to speed up cultivation, it was best to do so.
That was also one reason Ji Yang had been eager to absorb his first soul ring.
"The soul skill is pretty good too. It didn't disappoint me!"
A satisfied smile appeared on Ji Yang's face once more.
His first soul skill was Phoenix Fire, a skill that combined a numerical boost with damage.
After he used his first soul skill, his fire-based offensive soul skills would receive a twenty-five percent boost for the next three minutes, and a mass of phoenix-shaped flames would surge from his Eight Trigrams Alchemy Furnace martial soul to attack his enemies.
Even if it only increased the power of his soul skills rather than all his own attributes, it was still quite good.
Especially since the boost was substantial-it was hard to imagine a skill from a white soul ring providing such an increase.
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