Once soul beasts reached ten thousand years and successfully awakened intelligence, they would leave a trace of soul power within their soul rings. When soul masters absorbed rings over ten thousand years old, they would suffer an assault from that soul power.
With the slightest carelessness, a soul master could very well be reduced to an idiot by that assault, causing the absorption to fail and inflicting a backlash that would then cost them their life.
This was the main reason those below level fifty could not absorb ten thousand year soul rings.
Two factors limited the age of the soul rings a soul master could absorb: the first was physical constitution, and the second was spiritual power.
Physical constitution could be improved little by little through training and medicinal baths.
But improvements in spiritual power could only be left to nature. Growing older and increasing one's soul power would both, to a certain extent, naturally strengthen spiritual power.
Yet this growth was too slow, which meant soul masters needed to reach the rank of Quasi-Soul King before their spiritual power could withstand such a soul assault.
Soul beasts that had not awakened intelligence could leave, at most, a little resentment within their soul rings. This resentment only weakly interfered with a soul master's absorption of a ring and could not directly affect it.
But however weak that interference was, it could not simply be ignored. Thus, high-grade meditation methods offered a degree of resistance to the resentment and soul assaults within soul rings.
Junior Soul Master Academies and Intermediate Soul Master Academies taught, at most, unranked and low-grade meditation methods. Only those who enrolled in Advanced Soul Master Academies would be taught mid-grade meditation methods.
As for high-grade meditation methods, only soul master factions that had existed for many years possessed them.
The meditation method Ning Rongrong practiced was high-grade and offered considerable resistance to the resentment within soul rings.
In theory, even if Tang Mo had not extracted that resentment originating from the Giant-Claw Demon Shrimp, Ning Rongrong could still have easily refined the soul ring.
It was simply that Tang Mo wanted to test whether Water Mirror could restrain incorporeal things such as resentment and souls, so he had used Ning Rongrong for a little experiment.
He wanted to conduct this experiment in preparation for obtaining his third soul ring before long. There was still a Blue Silver King with eighty-thousand-year cultivation in the Star Dou Great Forest.
Although Ah Yin, as a hundred-thousand-year soul beast, was older, Tang Mo would not wait until she recovered before obtaining his third soul ring.
Besides, Ah Yin was not yet in his hands. He would not pop the champagne at halftime.
Crack!
Tang Mo crushed the Water Mirror before him with a turn of his hand, and the Giant-Claw Demon Shrimp's resentment trapped inside vanished like smoke.
With no external force obstructing her and the soul ring's age within her tolerance threshold, Ning Rongrong soon finished absorbing it. A yellow soul ring flickered slowly beneath her feet.
"Seven Treasures Turn, Revealing Glazed Splendor. First: Attack."
Holding the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Pagoda in one hand, she applied her first soul skill to Tang Mo like a child who had just received a beloved toy and could not wait to show it off.
Tang Mo could clearly feel that although Ning Rongrong's soul skill amplified attack power, it did not provide an enhancement for a set period. Instead, it enhanced the next move, bringing that move's power to 120 percent of its usual strength.
Without any soul rings attached, the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Pagoda provided a base enhancement of ten percent, and each additional soul ring raised that by ten percent.
In other words, with one soul ring, Ning Rongrong could provide others with a twenty-percent enhancement.
Seeing Tang Mo's thoughtful expression, Ning Rongrong assumed he was surprised by her soul skill.
Just as she was about to introduce her soul skill, her face suddenly grew somewhat pale, and the soul power within her rapidly drained away like water through an opened floodgate.
"Stop!" Tang Mo barked.
Ning Rongrong instinctively withdrew the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Pagoda. The instant her martial soul vanished, so did the enhancement on Tang Mo.
"Little princess, didn't you notice? As long as the soul master you've enhanced doesn't use a soul skill immediately, it will keep consuming your soul power," Tang Mo reminded the bewildered Ning Rongrong with some helplessness.
Ning Rongrong's first soul skill was quite unusual. If her teammate used a soul skill the instant she applied the enhancement, the cost to her was negligible.
Even Ning Rongrong, who had only just obtained her first soul ring and had merely level-eleven soul power, could enhance a soul master in the teens up to ten times in succession.
However, Tang Mo's soul power was more than ten levels higher than Ning Rongrong's. Coupled with the heavy cost of continuously maintaining the enhancement, this had caused her to nearly exhaust her soul power after sustaining it for less than a minute.
Ning Rongrong's first soul skill was both strong and weak. How much it could accomplish depended entirely on her grasp of the battle.
The ability to enhance basic attributes was certainly powerful, but increases in basic attributes sometimes did not greatly affect a soul skill's power.
For instance, increases in the five basic attributes of strength, speed, soul power, defense, and attack did not enhance ranged attacks that consumed a fixed amount of soul power in the slightest.
Thus, her first soul skill was particularly suited to being cast just before a teammate delivered a killing blow. Once the enemy had grown accustomed to her teammate's soul skill power, a sudden twenty-percent increase would be enough to catch them off guard and could even defeat them in a single strike.
Compared with the strength-enhancing first soul skill she should have possessed, Tang Mo did not know whether her current skill counted as an improvement or a weakening.
Looking at Ning Rongrong's slightly pale face, pouting lips, and unhappy expression, Tang Mo could not help chuckling.
"All right, don't be unhappy. I'll roast some shrimp for you." As he spoke, Dark Gold Dreadclaws sprang from his hand. The sharp claws easily split open the Giant-Claw Demon Shrimp's pair of pincers, and he skewered the meat inside on them.
The next instant, wisps of steam suddenly rose from the white shrimp meat tinged with red.
Without using an open flame, Tang Mo had actually cooked the shrimp meat through with the qi of heart fire.
The qi of the five elements represented by the five viscera was not merely symbolic in theory. Heart fire was the easiest of them to manifest.
In his previous life, Tang Mo had encountered members of the Fire Virtue Sect who transformed the qi of heart fire into actual flames.
However, while the qi of heart fire was the easiest to manifest as flames, it was also the easiest way to play with fire and burn oneself to death.
Tang Mo's grasp of the power of the five elements was not yet deep enough, so for now, he only dared skim the surface, merely heating the Dark Gold Dreadclaws rather than directly manifesting flames.
Under the intense heat, the shrimp meat soon cooked through, and an exceptionally rich aroma drifted out of the carriage.
Drawn by the aroma, even Ning Rongrong and Qian Renxue, who prided themselves on having eaten every delicacy, could not help swallowing.
The Heaven Dou Empire's capital and Seven Treasure City, where the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect was based, were far from Vast Sea City. Moreover, the vast majority of storage soul tools could only hold nonliving things, so neither of them had eaten much fresh sea soul beast meat. At most, they had eaten dried seafood.
Storage soul tools capable of holding living things did exist, but they were exceedingly rare. Aside from Tang Mo's Green Pearl Bracer, there was only the Wishful Hundred Treasure Pouch owned by Dugu Bo.
Thus, no one would be so extravagant as to use a storage soul tool capable of holding living things to transport fresh seafood inland.
Noticing Ning Rongrong and Qian Renxue staring fixedly, Tang Mo took some fine salt from Eight Thousand Miles of Clouds and Moon and sprinkled it over the shrimp meat, then divided a whole piece into two and handed it to them.
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