The changes to the Soul Mushroom stopped happening at some point. Afterwards, while it still absorbed the energy of the soul beads, there were no longer any changes. Perhaps it no longer had any use for the strength of the soul beads.

Qin Yu wasn’t happy or surprised. If he wasn’t wrong, then after absorbing over 300 soul beads, the growth of the Soul Mushroom had touched upon some bottleneck. Once it made a breakthrough, it might reach a thousand years of age.

Since the time when he had obtained the Soul Mushroom from Immortal Eclipse Valley, only several years had passed. If he hadn’t inadvertently discovered that soul beads could accelerate the growth of the Soul Mushroom, then he might not have reached this step even after dozens or a hundred years.

Qin Yu left the side hall. He needed to make arrangements ahead of time and then calmly waited for the Soul Mushroom to transform.

The Lord Priest smiled. “Priest Qin Yu, how can I help you?”

Qin Yu cupped his hands together. “Lord Priest, I was wondering whether or not Moon Praying Shrine has a large-scale method of extracting spiritual strength from spirit stones.”

The Lord Priest furrowed his eyebrows. “Priest Qin Yu is preparing to cultivate?”

Qin Yu nodded, “Yes.”

“Oh. This sort of array formation isn’t considered too rare or precious. Our Moon Praying Shrine has several kinds. With Priest Qin Yu’s cultivation, choosing one that extracts a bit faster should be fine.”

“No, I need the fastest one and one that covers the largest range possible.”

The Lord Priest’s eyes shined. “My Moon Praying Shrine does have such a method, called the Great Moon Praying Array. Based on the number of spirit stones added, this array formation can be adjusted from within. The more spirit stones the stronger it is, and the faster the extraction speed. However, I must tell Priest Qin Yu ahead of time that the Great Moon Praying Array uses up a tremendous number of spirit stones. I fear there will be an enormous waste of energy.”

Qin Yu shook his head. “Wasting some spirit stones is no problem. Then, I’ll have to ask Lord Priest to prepare the Great Moon Praying Array.” He rose up, “And about this, please try to be as fast as possible.”

Watching Qin Yu leave, the Lord Priest frowned. He was a bit perplexed. Just what was Qin Yu trying to do?

Cultivate?

An idiot could tell that wasn’t the case.

Could it be possible that this was related to him being able to resist heavenly tribulation?

The Lord Priest’s eyes brightened.

Moon Praying Shrine had an extraordinarily fast response. A moon-shaped array formation was rapidly built. It was unknown just what sort of material it was made from. It resembled metal that had been poured into the ground, and it shimmered with bright moonlight silver. Perhaps this was the origin of the Great Moon Praying Array’s name.

When the array formation was completed, the Moon Praying Shrine seafolk workers bowed and drew back. Although the various tribes had always held a cold attitude towards humans, it was clear that Qin Yu wasn’t included in that category. With his current status, no matter which tribe he went to he would be received and celebrated as an honored guest.

Qin Yu flicked his sleeves and took out a pile of spirit stones. He placed it in the Great Moon Praying Array and the array formation began to revolve on its own. The pure spiritual strength contained within the spirit stones wildly surged out. Qin Yu didn’t care about the spiritual strength crazily scattering in all directions, but was closely investigating the circulation of the array formation. After confirming that there weren’t any problems with it, only then did he relax.

However, just because he didn’t find anything wrong didn’t mean that he lowered his guard. He was well aware that the Lord Priest was extremely curious about how he managed to resist heavenly tribulation, and if he was given the chance to find out, he certainly wouldn’t miss out on it.

Luckily, Qin Yu wasn’t completely clueless on array formations. Even if he couldn’t sense anything wrong with the Great Moon Praying Array, he was still able to lay down his own array formation within it, one that was able to isolate all outside spying. If it weren’t for this, Qin Yu wouldn’t have gone to Moon Praying Shrine for help but would have figured out another method to draw spiritual strength from the spirit stones.

Second day.

Third day.

Fourth day.

There were still no changes to the Soul Mushroom. But, what increased Qin Yu’s confidence was that it was absorbing strength from soul beads at an increasingly fast pace and there was less of a digestion period each time.

The ninth day.

The absorption rate of the Soul Mushroom reached an exaggerated degree. As long as a soul bead approached it, all of the strength within would be sucked dry!

Qin Yu’s thoughts raced. With a flick of his hands he took out all the soul beads from his storage ring. A dense heap of over 200 soul beads submerged the entire Soul Mushroom.

Hum –

Hum –

All the soul beads began to tremble. One could see the mist within being pulled out constantly, so fast that they started to shrink at a speed visible to the naked eye.

One had to remember that this was the strength flowing out from over 200 soul beads. Right now, the Soul Mushroom was absorbing…no, perhaps ‘swallowing’ was more appropriate. The speed at which the Soul Mushroom was swallowing energy was truly terrifying!

Qin Yu frowned. Could the strength of over 200 soul beads still be insufficient? As he was considering whether to ask Moon Praying Shrine for more soul beads, he suddenly heard a loud crackling sound as large cracks began to appear all over the surfaces of the soul beads.

This was the first time such a scene had occurred. In the past, when soul beads cracked it had been when they were completely exhausted of strength. Right now, over 200 soul beads broke open and the pure soul force within wildly spouted out. It condensed into a thick fog in the air that was completely swallowed up by the Soul Mushroom in just several breaths of time!

Buzz –

A strange shaking sound appeared. It wasn’t heard in the ears, but rose up from the depths of the soul. At first it was soft, but as time passed it became fast and fierce, as if the calm waters of a lake were beginning to boil and roll over!

The Soul Mushroom trembled. It seemed as if it would undergo the next step in its evolution, but was missing some sort of essential strength.

Qin Yu reacted without hesitation. With a flick of his sleeve a mountain of spirit stones appeared, flooding through every corner of the Great Moon Praying Array. The array formation crazily revolved and a massive amount of spiritual strength was drawn out and then swallowed by the Soul Mushroom.

The palm-sized Soul Mushroom’s swallowing ability had reached a terrifying degree. To absorb so much spiritual strength at once, even a Nascent Soul cultivator would blow up. But, the Soul Mushroom didn’t seem to experience any problems at all, and its swallowing speed still didn’t seem to reach its maximum potential.

The entire mountain of spirit stones began to shrink visibly. Qin Yu’s eyes brightened. The more the Soul Mushroom absorbed proved just how much more powerful it would become; how could he not want this? He waved his hand and swept away the endless amounts of powder. Then, he took out another spirit stone mountain and filled the entire Great Moon Praying Array once more.

He had plenty of spirit stones. Even if he had to take out another 10 spirit stone mountains, he would have more than enough. However much you want to swallow, go ahead and do it!

The third spirit stone mountain

The fourth spirit stone mountain.

Suddenly, all of the unabsorbed spirit stones were forced back by some invisible strength to reveal the Soul Mushroom. Qin Yu’s eyes brightened. He locked his eyes closely onto the Soul Mushroom. Faint traces of red lines began to appear on its light blue surface, spreading out according to some mysterious rule, making it seem like a net was covering it.

Then, from within Qin Yu’s soul, an extremely strong instinctual desire surged forth.

Refine it!

Refine it!

Refine it!

At this time, this was the only thought in Qin Yu’s mind. It was so strong and intense that he couldn’t suppress it.

And Qin Yu had no intent of suppressing it to begin with. He stepped forwards and grabbed the Soul Mushroom. Magic power rose up from his palm and took the shape of a furnace phantom. That was right, this was the furnace condensed from magic power that Qin Yu had used when he refined the five-element spiritual objects. He hadn’t thought of this before, but was only following his instincts on what step to take.

And in reality, Qin Yu’s decision wasn’t wrong. After the Soul Mushroom was wrapped up by the magic power furnace, it rapidly began to turn illusory. After several breaths of time, the furnace quietly trembled and turned into magic power that fused into Qin Yu’s body.

He closed his eyes. He could suddenly feel that somewhere within his body, a place that had always been shrouded in darkness, suddenly lit up.

Then, Qin Yu could see an illusory image of himself, smiling back at him.

This illusory Qin Yu had a three-colored sphere of light above his head in black, white, and gray. This illusory Qin Yu also stepped on seven colors of orange, red, yellow, green, indigo, blue, and purple.

Instinctually, Qin Yu knew that this was his soul.

Humans had three immortal souls and seven mortal forms, each representing the spirit and intellect of a person. The three immortal souls were black, white, and gray, and the seven mortal forms were red, orange, yellow, green, indigo, blue, and purple…these weren’t things that anyone needed to tell him, rather, it was something he instinctually knew after seeing his own soul. But at this time, illuminating the darkness and allowing Qin Yu to see his own soul, there was a wave-like mirror hanging above the three-colored sphere atop his soul.

That was right, it was a mirror. The image it reflected within was a second soul of Qin Yu’s; one that was exactly the same as his own soul. And, what was most mysterious was that Qin Yu could feel that the soul in the mirror was both illusory and real.

It was illusory because it was only a phantom. As the mirror’s surface fluctuated, the image would shift with it.

It was real because this soul reflection actually possessed a completely similar aura and strength to his own soul. It was like as soon as Qin Yu wanted it to, it could come out at any moment.

As Qin Yu was thinking this, the soul image reflected in the mirror really did walk out. It walked out and then cupped its hands together. “Thank you fellow daoist Qin Yu for saving me.”

It was his appearance but not his voice. In fact, it was a bit familiar.

Qin Yu’s pupils shrank. “Spirity!”

The soul reflection faintly smiled. Its figure rapidly changed, soon becoming that young lady he had met several times at Immortal Eclipse Valley, Miss Spirity.

“That’s right, it is me.”

Qin Yu’s soul said, “I think you should give me an explanation for this.”

Spirit frowned. “You don’t know yet? Ah, I almost forgot, there is still one final step you have yet to complete. I will wait for you to complete it and then you will naturally know everything. I am very weak right now and need some time to recuperate. You can leave first.”

His field of vision darkened and his soul perception vanished. It was like he had been kicked out. Qin Yu’s eyes flashed open and his complexion was dignified.

Pa –

There was a light sound from his hand. Starting from the red lines that crossed it, the Soul Mushroom broke apart into countless pieces. At the same time, information appeared in Qin Yu’s mind. There was a great deal of it and it was extremely complex. He stumbled dizzily, organizing his thoughts until he had the approximate meaning behind it.

The reason that the Soul Mushroom had a soul was because the spirit of spiritual wood was inextinguishable, bred from spiritual flames. When the Soul Mushroom grew to a thousand years of age, the spirit of the spiritual wood would obtain a new life and would revive within the body of the person who refined the Soul Mushroom. This was called the Partner Soul. The spirit of the spiritual wood would be bound to that person’s body and become inextricably linked to them. They could cultivate on their own initiative, and the benefits from their cultivation would be equally shared with their host.

It was obvious that Spirity was the spirit of the spiritual wood that had been made into a wooden frame within Treasure Collection Pavilion!

According to this information, Spirity should now be in a state where she took Qin Yu as her master. After all, Qin Yu was the one who granted her new life. But, the reality of the situation seemed a bit different…has anyone ever seen a master forcibly kicked out from their own soul space without his agreement beforehand?

Qin Yu grimaced. But no matter what he tried, he couldn’t reopen the soul space in his body. It was like someone had added a lock from the inside.

This was too excessive!

My soul is in there and yet I actually can’t go in? Is there anything more ridiculous in this world!

It was simply absurd!

As Qin Yu was annoyed and angered, within one of Sea God Palace’s 12 main temples, the Lord Priest was sitting there, closely observing the moonstone in front of him.

After a long time, he opened his eyes, his expression dignified.