"Oh, right." Tang Mo's second voice message immediately followed. "The Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect's little princess has already broken through rank ten."
Hearing this, Gu Rong glanced at the Fish Intestine Sword in surprise. He had not expected Tang Mo to understand the ways of the world too. Those words were clearly meant for him, and their purpose was naturally to forge a friendly connection.
Although the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect had not developed any life-saving self-created soul skills, it had conducted extremely thorough research into the addition of soul rings.
Because the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Pagoda had only seven floors, every soul master with the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Pagoda martial soul could cultivate only as far as rank seventy-nine.
Under these circumstances, the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Pagoda could have no more than seven soul rings attached to it. Aside from the seventh soul ring, which was used to unleash the Martial Soul Avatar, only six soul rings required careful research.
Generally speaking, the first six soul rings needed to cover enhancements to the five basic attributes: strength, speed, soul power, defense, and attack.
Beyond those five basic attributes, only one soul ring remained for a free choice.
The varieties of sea soul beasts were as numerous as hairs on an ox. Right now, the Evil Spirit Orca Clan's movements had swept quite a few sea soul beasts ashore, giving Gu Rong the perfect chance to pick one suitable for Ning Rongrong and save the time they would otherwise spend searching for her soul ring later.
His gaze swept across the shore, and he soon found a large shrimp about twenty centimeters long. It was called a giant-claw demon shrimp, and its appearance closely resembled a peacock mantis shrimp. Its abilities were similar as well: both could throw high-speed punches within a short span of time.
However, giant-claw demon shrimp were naturally small, and after throwing a punch, they needed some time to recover. In other words, as long as one dodged their first punch, they could easily be devoured.
Moreover, the meat inside their pair of claws happened to be incomparably delicious, which left them with numerous natural predators. Even quite a few fishermen would risk catching them.
As a result, even though giant-claw demon shrimp possessed frightening punching power and were said to be able to repel thousand-year soul beasts with just a hundred years of cultivation, that could not change the fact that their species could not produce a soul beast older than a thousand years.
When a giant-claw demon shrimp reached ten centimeters in length, it was equivalent to a hundred-year soul beast. After that, every additional five centimeters represented another hundred years of cultivation.
This giant-claw demon shrimp, measuring around twenty centimeters long, had just over three hundred years of cultivation but had not exceeded four hundred, making it just right for Ning Rongrong's first soul ring.
He reached through the spatial rift before him and seized the giant-claw demon shrimp's pair of claws with unerring accuracy.
"Crack! Crack!"
With two sounds of cracking bone, Gu Rong twisted off the pair of claws, which were even a size larger than the giant-claw demon shrimp's body.
Then, holding the giant-claw demon shrimp that had lost its ability to resist, he tossed it into the spatial rift that appeared before him.
A spatial rift appeared in front of Tang Mo in turn, and the giant-claw demon shrimp dropped through it, landing inside the carriage.
"Little princess, your first soul ring is here." After teasing Ning Rongrong, Tang Mo signaled that she could begin.
Holding her dagger, Ning Rongrong looked at the giant-claw demon shrimp that had suddenly appeared before her, momentarily unsure how to start.
"Just cut off its head." Seeing that Ning Rongrong did not know how to proceed, Tang Mo offered a reminder.
"Yah! Take this!" At his words, Ning Rongrong closed her eyes, cried out, and raised her dagger as she charged at the giant-claw demon shrimp.
"Clang! Shhk!"
The dagger first scraped a shower of sparks from the giant-claw demon shrimp's shell. Then, through an incredible stroke of luck, Ning Rongrong stabbed it into the shrimp's head at a bizarre angle.
However, because Ning Rongrong had too little strength, the dagger became stuck in a rather awkward position. It only needed to go a little farther to pierce the shrimp's brain, yet she simply could not push it in.
"Here, I'll teach you." Tang Mo took Ning Rongrong's hand and guided her to gather some of the soul power she had recovered onto the dagger.
A cold gleam flashed across the dagger before it pierced the shrimp's brain. With a slight twist of the blade, the giant-claw demon shrimp lost all signs of life.
This was a method somewhat similar to Object Control, called Object Transformation. It likewise involved pouring qi into a weapon, but rather than controlling the weapon to attack from a distance, its purpose was to enhance the weapon's own capabilities.
Object Transformation had three forms. The first temporarily enhanced the weapon's own attributes, such as making a blade tougher and sharper.
The second bestowed capabilities beyond those of the weapon itself. After feeding a weapon soul power day after day, one could unleash ranged attacks such as Sword Qi through it.
The third was sublimation, or artifact refining. Once an object was refined into a magical artifact, it would possess incredible power. Moreover, it would not bind itself to a master. Anyone who obtained the magical artifact only needed to feed it soul power for a while before they could use it.
Object Transformation and Object Control were connected by countless threads. Object Transformation could unleash Sword Qi, while Object Control enabled flight, so those known as sword immortals were essentially people who had mastered both abilities.
What Tang Mo was teaching Ning Rongrong now was the simplest form of Object Transformation: temporarily improving an object's basic attributes by feeding it soul power.
When the dagger was pulled out, not even a speck of grime clung to it. Ning Rongrong looked at the dagger in her hand, a glimmer of delight flashing in her eyes.
She was not delighted because the dagger was sharp enough, but because she had mastered another new ability.
"Don't get too excited. Every tool soul master knows how to strengthen a weapon with soul power." After dousing Ning Rongrong with cold water, Tang Mo took the dagger from her hand, sheathed it, and tucked it back into her Storage Soul Tool.
"But I'm a support system soul master. Being able to strengthen a weapon with soul power is already quite impressive." As Ning Rongrong spoke, she planted both hands on her hips, part of her Little Demoness nature emerging, her face plainly saying, "Hurry up and praise me."
"Absorb the soul ring first." Tang Mo changed the subject, raising a hand to point at the yellow soul ring forming above the giant-claw demon shrimp's head.
"Mmm..." Having failed to receive the praise she had imagined, Ning Rongrong pouted. Then she sat cross-legged and drew the soul ring toward herself using the method Ning Fengzhi had taught her.
The soul ring settled onto the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Pagoda. Amid flickering yellow light, Ning Rongrong instinctively closed her eyes, calmed her mind, and began refining the soul ring.
With a thought, Tang Mo withdrew his second martial soul and switched to his first martial soul. The Fish Intestine Sword in Yue Guan's hand vanished along with it.
He did want to make a seamless transition, switching directly from the Fish Intestine Sword back to the Tang Sect Grandmaster. However, twin martial souls had a considerable drawback: the two martial souls could not coexist, and under ordinary circumstances, switching freely between them was impossible.
Bibi Dong could freely switch between the Death Spider Emperor and the Soul Devouring Spider Emperor, but her circumstances were special. For one thing, both her martial souls were spider-type martial souls; for another, her spiritual power was not weak.
In terms of quality, Tang Mo's spiritual power was even somewhat higher than Bibi Dong's, and had even brushed against the threshold of divine sense.
However, the total quantity of his spiritual power was too small, and his martial souls were not of the same type. As a result, to switch martial souls, he had to first withdraw the one already released before releasing the other, leaving a pause of several seconds between them.
As his first martial soul possessed him once more, two black soul rings blossomed beneath his feet. His second soul ring flashed, and a Water Mirror appeared in his hand.
He turned the Water Mirror toward Ning Rongrong, and the giant-claw demon shrimp's figure appeared on its surface. This was the small amount of resentment the giant-claw demon shrimp had left behind, which would interfere with Ning Rongrong as she absorbed the soul ring.
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