Divine Crow Soul Mark

After eating the python meat, Mu Bai would normally have gone out hunting and gathering herbs during the day. But he was eager to increase his soul power, so he set up the Crow Cauldron, added Nether Soul Grass, a Black Python Pill, and beast blood in turn, and began refining Soul-Shaping Pills.

Soul-Shaping Pills were potent second-tier pills, but Mu Bai already had experience successfully refining Dragon Bone Pills and Divine Thought Pills. Now that his mental power had also broken through to the second tier, refining Soul-Shaping Pills came easily to him.

About half a day later, five glossy black Soul-Shaping Pills formed, radiating light and a rich medicinal fragrance. Just then, the golden eagle circled back with a few squawks, dropping another black python at Mu Bai's feet with a thud.

"Heh, good thing you feed yourself, or I really couldn't afford to keep you!" Mu Bai shook his head with a chuckle. "Here, try a Soul-Shaping Pill first."

The golden eagle raised its head to catch the Soul-Shaping Pill Mu Bai tossed over and swallowed it without chewing. A moment later, an intoxicated expression appeared on its face, its eyes hazy, as though it had tasted heavenly nectar and miraculous elixirs.

The golden eagle had always eaten raw flesh and drunk blood. Only after eating cooked python meat and a Soul-Shaping Pill that day did it realize how recklessly it had squandered nature's gifts before.

After eating the Soul-Shaping Pill, the golden eagle lost interest in roasted python meat. Squinting, it rubbed its rump against the cliff wall, slowly digesting the pill's effects, and fell asleep with a "Snore... snore..."

Mu Bai rolled his eyes at the golden eagle. "Truly, a jade tree gleaming in the wind, while a donkey-mule sleeps soundly..."

Putting the black python away for later use, Mu Bai took a Soul-Shaping Pill himself. Its effects were indeed beyond words. The faint medicinal power enveloped the soul in his divine palace, making it tingle as though it were about to melt. Once the medicinal power had been digested, Mu Bai clearly felt that mass of soul draw another step closer to breaking through the second-tier barrier.

An entire year had passed since the tribe's catastrophe, and Mu Bai's mental power had already broken through to the second tier. Why not ride that momentum and raise his soul power to a new realm as well?

At that thought, Mu Bai simply abandoned his plans to hunt that day and swallowed another Soul-Shaping Pill.

As its name suggested, the Soul-Shaping Pill could reshape soul power, melting and dispersing the original mass of blue-mist-like soul before condensing and shaping it into a tiny human form, bringing about a qualitative transformation and improvement.

Normally, after this advancement, the same strand of soul power would strike with ten times the force. However, the richer and purer one's accumulated soul power, the greater the combat strength one could wield even within the same tier.

Having already taken one Soul-Shaping Pill, Mu Bai now swallowed another and could clearly feel the changes in his soul. This time, instead of tingling, he felt a tearing sensation that gradually became unbearably painful, as though his soul were being ripped apart.

But Mu Bai had once consumed a large quantity of Valley Essence Grass, and his body and mind possessed a tolerance for pain rarely seen in ordinary people. Even if his bones were shattered and regrown, he could presumably endure it.

"One isn't enough. Then let's make it count!"

Without hesitation, Mu Bai swallowed the two remaining Soul-Shaping Pills in one gulp. With a boom, his soul suddenly erupted into rolling flames, burning from his divine palace down to his Dantian, then through his limbs and every bone in his body.

Mu Bai clenched his teeth and remained seated cross-legged. Before long, his entire body burned red, wisps of blue smoke rising from it.

"Still not enough!"

Mu Bai gathered together the pills he had refined over time. Anything that benefited soul power-Soul-Gathering Pills, Soul-Nourishing Pills, Soul-Cleansing Pills-he stuffed a dozen or so pills of various kinds into his mouth and swallowed them.

As the medicinal power of the various pills spread, it was like pouring oil onto a fire. The flames consuming his soul abruptly intensified, surging throughout his body as though about to boil.

"Success or failure comes down to this! Black python, come!"

Mu Bai seized the black python's enormous body, savagely bit through its flesh, and sucked hard at its blood, drawing in the immense vitality within it to nourish the reshaping and regeneration of his soul.

An incense stick's worth of time later, the flames consuming the soul in his divine palace gradually subsided.

After the burning, as though its impurities had been burned away, his soul became crystalline and pure, taking the form of a tiny person sitting cross-legged above his Divine Sea, radiating a soft blue glow and surging with vigorous vitality.

In fact, once that original mass of soul began burning, Mu Bai could have shaped it directly and entered the ranks of second-tier soul cultivators. But the fiercer and more thorough the burning, the purer the refined soul would become, and the more formidable the combat strength it could unleash.

"It worked!"

Mu Bai let out a long breath. Feeling the changes in his soul power, he threw a punch. Its force was fully twenty times what he had possessed when he first became a soul cultivator-roughly twenty thousand stone of strength.

Mu Bai's soul power had always been profound. Even at the peak of the first tier, he could fight the second-tier golden eagle. Now, after another qualitative transformation, his improvement was immense.

With his soul having broken through to the second tier, Mu Bai looked again at the Pear Blossom Soul Mark on his right arm. It seemed to have gained spirit, becoming vivid and alive.

It was this very Pear Blossom Soul Mark that had set him on the path of an Alchemist. And it was his identity as an Alchemist that had brought about all these upheavals.

"Why was it a single Pear Blossom Soul Mark? What I visualized and engraved upon my soul was clearly the tribe's ancestral spirit, the Three-Legged Divine Crow!"

"Perhaps this was an arrangement ordained by the Unseen. Whether it's a blessing or a curse, I'll know if I keep walking!"

"Next, if I visualize and copy a fierce beast, I can engrave its Soul Mark and gain its innate abilities."

Mu Bai looked at the golden eagle beside him. It immediately understood and came up to him with a few squawks, as though volunteering to let him copy it.

"The second Soul Mark is usually made by having the Clan Patriarch control a fierce beast with mental power for the tribespeople to visualize and copy. Since the golden eagle is under my control, it meets that condition." Rubbing his chin, Mu Bai pondered, Although the golden eagle is a common fierce bird without any so-called divine beast bloodline, copying its Soul Mark would give me the power of flight. That alone is exceedingly precious!

He gently stroked the golden eagle. Overjoyed, it hurriedly opened its mind and offered up its soul, which stood proudly in the air with its head raised, brimming with spirit. Like a model waiting to be painted, it struck all sorts of dashing poses for Mu Bai.

Judging by the golden eagle's smug, enraptured gaze, it seemed only a step away from saying, "Make this badass look a little more handsome when you copy him..."

Mu Bai couldn't help laughing. Though he had spent only a few days with the golden eagle, he understood its thoughts quite well.

"All right, then I'll copy you with the bearing of an emperor!"

Mu Bai settled into place, opened his mind, and sent out a strand of his soul to coil around and envelop the golden eagle's soul. The golden eagle remained utterly still, but inwardly it was immensely pleased, as though awaiting the arrival of a twin brother.

That strand of Mu Bai's soul transformed into the golden eagle's outline, so lifelike that it even carried a hint of sleaziness as it scurried into his divine palace with tiny steps. Next, his mind would visualize and copy it.

The golden eagle strutted about with its head held high, glancing at Mu Bai from time to time, its eyes full of anticipation.

Mu Bai visualized the golden eagle's outline upon his soul. He brought down the brush of his divine sense for a stroke, but nothing budged. He could not copy even the slightest trace.

"Your soul differs from an ordinary person's. Whether this bodes good or ill is impossible to tell."

Unable to copy the Soul Mark, Mu Bai recalled what the Clan Patriarch had said during his soul awakening.

"Could Heaven truly be trying to bar my way?"

"The first Soul Mark I engraved was clearly the Three-Legged Divine Crow, yet it turned out to be a single pear blossom petal."

Mu Bai still remembered the instant that Soul Mark had formed. His divine palace had gone blank, with snowflakes and pear blossoms filling the sky, drifting and scattering.

"Even if Heaven bars my way, I refuse to submit!"

Mu Bai's mental power erupted. He abruptly intensified his divine sense and fiercely engraved a stroke upon his soul. Just as when he had carved his first Soul Mark and drawn that final stroke, immense mental power gathered, engraving the pattern he had long since learned by heart upon his soul.

Suddenly, a Three-Legged Divine Crow manifested, throwing back its head in a long cry, looking down upon all beneath heaven.

"It's actually the Divine Crow!"

Mu Bai was shocked.

While he was still reeling, the Divine Crow stopped crying and vanished into his soul. A Divine Crow Soul Mark appeared in the position of the second Soul Mark on his right arm.

"Why is this happening? How can it be so strange? That pear blossom petal seemed to have been in my soul from birth, blocking the Divine Crow soul spirit."

Rather than feeling joy at successfully forming a Soul Mark, Mu Bai grew increasingly suspicious of that Pear Blossom Soul Mark.

"So be it. Whether it's a blessing or a curse, I'll know if I keep walking! At least the Divine Crow appeared, and I still have the Soul Mark the Clan Patriarch gave me..."

Mu Bai murmured, remembering the Clan Patriarch, that gaunt old man who had spat out essence blood to perform Soul Awakening for him, hoping that the child he cherished would engrave the mark of the tribe's ancestral spirit.

Seeing Mu Bai's completed mark, the golden eagle was so shocked that it nearly fainted. Its expression was incredulous. "This badass is a mighty, majestic golden eagle, and you actually copied a crow!"

Mu Bai calmed the turmoil in his mind, stroked the golden eagle's head, and sprang off the ground. With the Divine Crow soul spirit, he could fly. He leaped out of the gorge and landed on the crown of a huge tree by the cliff. The moonlight spread like white silk, and it seemed he could reach out and touch the bright moon.

"Is this moon also the moon of the Haibei Tribe? Tung blossoms, are you snow drifting down in June? Brother Xiao Bai, where are you..."