Ye Qing had already worked it out when he absorbed his first soul ring.
When absorbing a soul ring, the soul power impact was strongest in the instant the ring first descended. After that, it merely supplied a steady flow of soul power, unlike that first wave, which tried to smash through everything with brute force and kill the soul master absorbing it in one blow.
Since Ye Qing could withstand this soul ring's first impact, he could rest easy through the rest of the absorption process.
Whatever soul power he could absorb became his own strength. Whatever he could not absorb, he simply stuffed into the Wings of Light without a second thought.
The process itself, however, was decidedly unpleasant.
Even Ye Qing, long accustomed to training under crushing gravity, felt as though he was about to be flattened into two dimensions. Aside from the soul power surging through his meridians like raging waves, he could even hear his bones and flesh groaning beneath the unbearable burden.
Faced with this, Ye Qing could only endure the excruciating pain that permeated his entire body, maintain a steady condition, and methodically refine the violent soul power pouring into him from the soul ring.
His persistence was clearly not in vain.
As more and more soul power flooded into his body from the soul ring, Ye Qing actually found refining it increasingly easy, because the seventy-thousand-year Light-Breaking Right Arm Bone had finally begun to serve its proper purpose.
With every full circulation of soul power, once it entered the meridians of his right arm and flowed back into the rest of Ye Qing's body, the violent energy seemed to have been purified. It became gentle and soothing, easy for him to refine.
It was precisely because he had the Light-Breaking Demon soul bone to assist him that Mu En and Ye Feng had concluded he could withstand a soul ring another two thousand years older, provided it came from a Light Spirit.
The hardest part was over. Next came the generous rewards of absorbing a soul ring beyond his normal limits.
First was Ye Qing's soul power, the most immediately apparent increase in his strength. Even though he had not finished absorbing the soul ring and the level-twenty bottleneck remained intact, he could feel his power swelling continuously.
Yet, whether it was his imagination or not, despite that steadily swelling strength, Ye Qing felt very little of the sensation that usually accompanied an increase in soul power level.
As he refined more and more of the soul ring's power, Ye Qing realized it was not his imagination.
His soul power had barely increased.
That swelling strength came from his attribute!
His light-attribute soul power had already been only a hair's breadth from the ultimate level. With the help of this six-thousand-eight-hundred-year Light Spirit soul ring, far beyond the normal standard for a second soul ring, it began its final leap.
The barrier to the ultimate level shattered completely, and Ye Qing's light attribute reached the ultimate realm Mu En had dreamed of!
The instant that barrier broke, a new piece of information naturally surfaced in Ye Qing's mind.
Ultimate Talent: Light of the Holy Hall. Talent effect: Your light attribute will be greatly enhanced, whether used for offense or support. The suppressive power of your ultimate attribute will transform into an infectious influence, making other creatures naturally feel close to you. If affected by your abilities, they will gradually be won over by your radiant nobility.
Ye Qing was willing to call this talent pure as ice and jade!
What exactly did it do?
Roughly speaking, anyone whose attribute was inferior to his would involuntarily find him trustworthy and regard him as a radiant, noble true gentleman-a real man.
As for being won over, that was simple enough. If Ye Qing later used Holy Light Healing or Holy Radiance Protection on others, the recipients of his soul skills would gradually fall under his influence.
Eventually, they might even become his diehard loyalists.
Fanatical fans, fervent believers!
Its counterpart was the ultimate darkness talent Ye Qing gained when he transformed the Sacred Radiance Heavenly God Tiger into the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger.
Ultimate Talent: Abyssal Darkness.
If Light of the Holy Hall inspired faith, then Abyssal Darkness tempted people into corruption. Abyssal Darkness gave Ye Qing the ability to stir up the darkness in others, unleashing the most evil, darkest thoughts in their hearts!
Abyssal Darkness was even more direct and brutal than Light of the Holy Hall. Ye Qing did not have to do anything deliberately. Simply standing beside someone would cause that person to involuntarily unleash the darkness within.
Then, step by step, they would walk into the abyss and fall into darkness.
This was-a supreme tool for turning people evil.
At this point, Ye Qing finally understood why his light attribute had always seemed to remain a sliver short of the ultimate level: light and darkness actually coexisted within him.
If the treasures needed to develop a normal ultimate attribute amounted to one, then Ye Qing's unified light and darkness, while not requiring two, needed at least one and a half.
Had this soul ring not come from a Light Spirit, and had it not been old enough, he probably would have needed to obtain his third soul ring and reach the Soul Elder rank before he had a chance to raise his coexisting light and darkness attributes to the ultimate level.
Developing an ultimate attribute consumed so much of the soul ring's soul power that, by the time he had absorbed the entire ring, Ye Qing had never needed to use his fallback, the Wings of Light.
Hilarious. There wasn't any spare soul power for the external soul bone to absorb in the first place.
The magnificent, brilliant purple soul ring merged completely into Ye Qing's body. His level-twenty bottleneck broke instantly, and his soul power began climbing steadily. It lingered at level twenty-one for only a moment before breaking straight through.
Twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four...
Twenty-five!
Together, the Light-Breaking Right Arm Bone and this six-thousand-eight-hundred-year Light Spirit soul ring successfully pushed Ye Qing into the middle stages of the Soul Grandmaster rank, bringing him to level twenty-five.
He should have reached several levels higher, but developing his ultimate attribute had consumed a considerable amount of power from both the soul ring and the soul bone, leaving him at only level twenty-five. After all, energy was conserved. Since the foundation of his light attribute had improved, less soul power naturally remained to raise his level.
But Ye Qing still thought it was well worth it!
He could cultivate those few levels of soul power with a little time, whereas an ultimate attribute was a power every soul master in the entire Soul Master World of the Douluo Continent dreamed of possessing.
Never mind a few levels of soul power-even if others were offered an ultimate attribute at the cost of losing ten or twenty levels, no one would refuse that trade.
The fluctuations of soul power around Ye Qing gradually subsided. He opened his eyes and looked at Ye Feng with a gaze both majestic and pure as ice and jade, leaving the latter momentarily stunned.
"This feeling..."
"That's right, Grandpa. My light attribute has evolved into ultimate light." In the most nonchalant tone, Ye Qing delivered the most shameless boast. "And my soul power level has reached twenty-five."
Tell me, who's the real genius now!
Before you continue