After swallowing the Spirit Core of the Thunder Horned Stag with its Soul still connected to the Core, Azalon immediately sat cross legged without a single thought of safety or consideration of his condition. He cut off all his senses and activated the [Devour] ability to its fullest capability.

The [Devour] was a powerful technique that has the ability to digest all kinds of Energies, but Azalon couldn’t utilise this wonderful ability because of his low cultivation level. And this inability proved its effect this day. Originally a Spirit Core of a Level 6 Beast was not something too powerful or tyrannical. Even though a Class 6 Beast was capable to battle a Spirit Condensation Realm Cultivator, it can still be brought down by a group of Spirit Sense Cultivators. But the Thunder Horned Stag was different. It just underwent its Tribulation through lightning and was supposed to be reborn as a Level 6 Beast, if Azalon and Hank had not intervened! But the powerful Tribulation Lightning made it's Soul to reach the Level 7 Beast. otherwise it couldn't have seperated its Soul from it's body and attach to its Spirit Core. The difference between Level 6 Beast and a Level 7 Beast was the difference between the Earth and Heaven, as a Level 7 Beast was equivalent to a Spirit Core Cultivator!

And taking into consideration of the explosive power of the Lightning Elemental Affinity of the Thunder Horned Stag that was supposed to be one of the powerful Elements of the Nature, one can measure the terrifying battle power of Thunder Horned Beast! But the Stag exhausted all the physical and mental capacities it possessed against the Tribulation Lightning. It was due to this sole reason that the brother duo was able to being down the mighty Beast!

Even though the body was destroyed by these two brothers, the Stag managed to attach its Soul to its Spirit Core as well as the Tribulation Lightning it collected in its body and intended to flee. Now, Azalon swallowed this powerful Spirit Core along with the equally powerful Soul into his body directly! If Azalon relaxed just for a moment in the refinement procedure, the consequences will not be something simple.

Azalon utilised all that he could to activate the [Devour] ability to the farthest extent possible. Under the reckless cycling of the ability, the Energies condensed within the Spirit Core were swiftly absorbed and the boundless Energy turned into a stream of Energy as it flowed into the meridians of the body. The turbulent Energy stream was like a sharp knife that cut through his meridians, as the meridians couldn’t handle that much influx of Energy all at a time. Azalon gritted his teeth and concentrated with all his might to tame the chaotic Energies before they could turn his meridians into minced meat!

With each revolution along with the constant suppression of Azalon’s consciousness, the violent Energy calmed down by a large amount, and by the time of 7th revolution through his meridians, the Energy stream was like calm and cool water that brought a pleasant and comfortable feeling to his damaged meridians. He moved a part of the Energy to heal is meridians and the remaining Energy was completely refined to the maximum capacity Azalon was capable of i.e. through 9 revolutions all around his body. Azalon guided the Energy into his Soul Root and watched carefully as the vortex started absorbing the Energy.

The vortex was like a thirsty land that just felt the first rain of the season. It immediately started absorbing the Energy like crazy and started expanding. But before it could expand freely, the confines made by the consciousness of Azalon set into place once again. The vortex struggled violently against the confinements, but Azalon tightly held them in place. With each moment, more and more Energy flowed into the vortex and the speed of the vortex constantly increased. Azalon carefully manipulated the Energy vortex by releasing and constricting to achieve the maximum refinement possible. It was one of the goals he set for himself, he other being the physical capabilities. He was determined to never break through until he explored the very limit of the current Level he was in!

This was something he discovered when he broke through to the Spirit Sense all those days ago. For two years, he was unable to cultivate the Spirit Energy, and as such he concentrated all his energy and time on his physical training. Under the mad training for two years, he overcame the strength that was believed to be the limit off the Spirit Novice Realm! His strength reached to a new level of 2000 pounds, almost double of the strength of the normal Spirit Novice Realm fighters, 1000 pounds! When a cultivator managed to reach the Spirit sense Realm from the Spirit Novice Realm, his strength will double and with every advancement in the Level, additional 1000 pounds strength to the fists! By that logic, once Azalon broke through, his strength doubled, reaching 4000 pounds! This is the strength of a 3rd Level Spirit Sense cultivator! This discovery made Azalon think it through before he decided on his future path. It was through this development that he manged to increase his strength by a small amount at each Level. Only after Azalon felt that he reached the limit will he attempt to reach the next Level!

This is a path that not everyone will think of treading! Even if the initial surge of strength will give one an edge over their peers, but this path will make their future cultivation progress fall down to the crawling pace of a snail if they have to follow this path! Let us assume that one cultivator managed to reach the extreme limits of strength or Energy cultivation on each Level. He can mow down some one over is cultivation level because of superior strength and more reserves of Spirit Energy! But what would happen one they advance to the next Realm? It was already a fact that the differences between he Levels as the cultivation advances will be vast. And to top it up, if one decides to explore the limits of their current level, how much time will they have to spend on the same level as their peers advance to the next Level? A Year, perhaps? A Decade, maybe? A Century, by the way? Even if they can skip levels in a fight in the initial stages, but once the cultivation reaches a certain stage, the differences between Levels will be a chasm, wide and deep enough to make the same scenario that happened in the initial stages almost impossible!

It was according to this decision that Azalon was concentrating on the vortex this intensely. The vortex revolved faster and faster and Azalon calculated the precise timings where he slightly released the mental restraint and allowed the vortex to grow larger. It was at this time that the Soul of the Thunder Horned Stag revealed itself! Earlier it was injured due to the cracking of the Spirit Core and was slightly dazed. But now it has recovered enough to realise that it has been absorbed by the human. It was shocked at first but it immediately became ecstatic. If it can erase the Soul of this human and take over tis body, it will no longer be a Beast, but Beast in a human form! It may lose its terrifying strength and its affinity with the Nature, but the tremendous potential of the human race was what allowed the human race to thrive in this chaotic world! If the Beast can take over the human body, this will be a new path for its future! It may even become one of the rulers of this world!

The Soul immediately rushed into the Soul Root just as Azalon felt something change in his body. The Stag materialised I its Soul form in the Soul Root of Azalon and it raised its head to look at the black Soul at the eye of the rapidly rotating Energy Vortex. Azalon felt his Soul tremble under the pressure exuded by the Spirit Core Realm Spirit Beast, and an unbearable coldness suddenly filled his consciousness and slowly started to freeze his consciousness. Azalon could feel himself slipping into darkness and his instincts loudly rang in his min not to fall asleep. If once his consciousness fades out, his Soul will be obliterated and be replaced by the Soul of the Thunder Horned Stag. Without his Soul, he will be completely wiped out from the reality never to reincarnate!

Azalon struggled with all his might to stay awake, to fight against the invading coldness, but the opponent was too strong. He cannot resist the powerful Soul Force with his puny cultivation level. Moreover, the Thunder Horne Sag went through the Tribulation Lightning and emerged victorious this made its Soul even resilient and powerful than the Beasts of the same level. His Soul trembled violently under the waves of the soul force, and the Energy Vortex with nothing to control it went into disarray as it was not stabilised completely. The Energy started wreaking havoc in his body and the situation turned worse.

*Kreee* WIth a wild shout, the Thunder Horned Stag pounced, intent on devouring the black Soul of Azalon and replace it, and then it will possess complete control over this boy. It will be reborn as a human! But the hands of Fate will always play a different game than what one intends to play! Who would have thought that just as the Thunder Horned Stag opened its mouth to devour the black Soul, the small purple sphere that was hid from the sight of the Thunder Horned Stag due to the Energy vortex, stop revolving and shine with a bright light? Once the purple Soul Embryo started shining, the Soul of the Stag froze in its action with its mouth and eyes still open! It looked as if invisible chains tied it down making it unable to move an inch.

The previous excited and crazy look in its eyes now turned into intense fear and crisis. It felt a premonition of danger to its existence, as if a Primordial Beast has set its eyes on it! It exerted all it could to break free of whatever shackles that were binding it, but it was of no use. Let alone break, it couldn’t even move. Just as the Stag was trembling in fear, the purple Embryo suddenly flew in its direction!

It appeared above the head of the Thunder Horned Stag in an instant, and a terrifying suction force came out from deep within the Soul Embryo! Before the Stag could even struggle, it was absorbed by the purple Embryo just like that! Once the Stag has been absorbed, the purple Embryo started pulsing with a purple light and the black Soul of Azalon also responded in a different rhythm. The rhythm between the two Souls was out of sync but slowly they started harmonising one pulse a time, as the purple Embryo slowly returned to its original position.

With the pressure from the Soul of the Tuner Horned Stag gone, it took only some moments before the coldness dispersed from Azalon’s consciousness. His mind was still foggy but he was alive alright! He immediately came into his senses as the pain from the rampaging Energy in his body woke him up. He ignored the pounding headache and gathered whatever mental Energy he could and attempted to stabilise the situation. It took a lot of time and effort but he eventually manage to one again stabilise the vortex. As soon as he did that, he turned to observe the purple Embryo that was still pulsing and slowly synchronising with the Main Soul,

He wiped his illusionary sweat as his risky gamble paid out! He finally discovered what was missing to activate the 7 Embryos formed from the 7 Primal Rings! He was ecstatic! He observed the synchronisation rate of the two Souls and estimated that it will take around a week before this new Spirit Awakens! Yes, Azalon’s 3rd Spirit!

He had been mulling over this problem from the ay Raka and LILY Awakened. Why was it that he could interact with these two Soul Embryos but the remaining 7 Embryos that were formed from the 7 Primal Rings stayed unresponsive all these days? He couldn’t find an answer, as this particular field of Souls and its importance was not something that the scientists of the Earth never even considered, and Azalon had been the same. In fact, all this cultivation, Spirits, Energy, everything’s new to Azalon and that is the sole reason why he had been frustrated and depressed over the fact that he couldn’t cultivate, for almost 2 years. This unknown made him excited! He wants to wade deeper and deeper into these uncharted waters and unravel the mysteries behind them!

So, as an amateur, he couldn’t find the answer until today! When he saw the Soul of the Thunder Horned Stag fly out from its body by attaching itself to its Spirit Core, he felt lightning flash in his mind as his answer became apparent! Soul! The Soul Embryos lacked an f**king SOUL! But you may ask, “Didn’t LILY Awaken as a Spirit? Isn’t she in the same position as the other 7?”

Yes, you are correct, but there’s a catch here. You see, LILY’s physical body underwent the metamorphosis forming a new body. The same happened with the other 7 as well. But what made LILY different from the other 7 is that she had Intelligence! Her Integral A.I. responded to whatever influenced her system and whatever Forces that initiated the metamorphosis took it as a sign of a Soul. And the final bridge was laid by Azalon’s Life Force!

But the same cannot be for the 7 Primal Rings. They are just physical objects that Azalon create to absorb the Primal Energies and keep him safe from them! Thus, even though they underwent the metamorphosis process to form their Soul Embryos, without an actual Soul in them, naturally nothing will happen!

And when Azalon absorbed the Soul of the Thunder Horned Beast, the traces of Primal Energy of the Lightning Element left behind by the Tribulation Lightning it absorbed resonate with the Primal Energy in the purple Embryo and the resulted in its absorption. Now with a Soul in it, the Embryo will finally hatch and his third Spirit will Awaken!!!

With this, his near future goal became apparent! Search for some powerful Beasts of each Element and absorb their Souls! Hmmm? Why powerful Beasts’ Souls? Why not settle with some lower level Beasts? “Hah… I can’t bother with you slow heads anymore. If you can’t even figure this out after this much sh***y explanation… Ahhhh… Sigh… “*A disdain look*…

With that settled, Azalon concentrated on refining and absorbing the Energy stream into his vortex and as the time passed, he broke through…

4th Level Spirit Sense Realm…

The Energy Stream still did not show any signs of drying out! Another Break through…

5th Level Spirit Sense Realm…

It was only after he reached the 5th Level did the constant stream of Energy turned into a trickle, before completely disappearing.

“As expected of an almost Level 7 Spirit Core, it allowed me to achieve two consecutive break throughs and directly pushed me into the 5th Level, that should have taken almost a month by the calculated estimation, even with the boost from LILY. I even gained another Spirit! It was a good haul this time, even though it was at the cost of knocking on the gates to the Underworld” Azalon thought as his consciousness shuddered, this time not from cold…