As Zhou Qing's spiritual consciousness focused, the intricate details within the fully yellow soul ring gradually appeared in his "vision."
Inside that yellow soul ring were countless fine lines, densely interconnected and tangled like an intricate net. For a moment, Zhou Qing felt a bit dizzy and overwhelmed.
Unintentionally, Zhou Qing relaxed his focus a bit, effectively pulling his perspective back.
With this, the patterns inside the soul ring became much bolder, resembling a simple sketch of a pair of crescent-shaped bull horns—the horns of the Moochun Bull!
Opening his eyes, Zhou Qing's gaze showed a trace of fatigue.
Tang San didn't ask immediately but handed over a water pouch.
Zhou Qing accepted it, opened the lid, and drank half of it. "Phew~ I guess it's a partial success."
"What do you mean by partial success?"
"Try it yourself: meditate, connect with your spirit weapon, and focus your spiritual power on the soul ring of your spirit weapon," Zhou Qing said. Given Tang San's two past lives and his training in the Purple Extreme Demon Eye from a young age, he should be able to see the patterns on the soul ring.
Sure enough.
After trying, Tang San soon opened his eyes, took the water pouch, and drank the rest. He said, "I saw the patterns on the soul ring. They look like wolf-hair grass, just outlined by lines, but inside those outlines, there are many more subtle patterns I can't clearly see... Connecting every path inside the soul ring to the paths inside the spirit weapon—that workload is simply beyond what we can do right now."
There were many reasons.
Lack of soul power was secondary. More importantly, both their spiritual power was insufficient—they couldn't even clearly discern how many paths existed in the intricate details of the soul ring's patterns.
If they can't observe it clearly, then connecting the two naturally becomes a problem.
Grafting the soul ring onto the spirit weapon is different from grafting between plants of the same category; it requires a thorough understanding of the soul power circulation routes inside the spirit weapon and very precise micro-operations.
After all, the "grafting" of the spirit weapon and the soul ring of a soul beast that isn't the same species or even the same type of spirit beast is definitely beyond the scope of "same category."
Fortunately, the spirit weapon is not a true physical entity; otherwise, "grafting" would be impossible.
[Perhaps I can use Romantina's spirit weapon ability...]
Zhou Qing thought of Romantina.
"The patterns inside the soul ring feel similar to the spirit inscriptions inside spirit devices—or rather, similar to the core spirit arrays of spirit devices," Tang San remarked, comparing the patterns inside the soul ring to the inscriptions within spirit devices.
Zhou Qing agreed and speculated, "Perhaps the core spirit arrays inside spirit devices were originally developed by ancient soul masters researching the patterns inside soul rings."
"If that's the case, those big powers must be very strong," Tang San felt a renewed urgency, thinking those major factions surely possess offensive spirit devices and possess profound research on soul rings.
"I don't think so," Zhou Qing said.
Although this might inspire Tang San to further study spirit devices, Zhou Qing had known Tang San since childhood and no longer treated him like just a "paper character" but as a friend.
He was vaguely aware of this but didn't see it as a problem.
"From ancient spirit device antiques and the Soul Saint's diary, it's recorded that to the southwest of Douluo Continent—near the southwest border of the Xingluo Empire—there are ancient ruins containing a teleportation array based on spirit devices... This shows that the once-glorious spirit device civilization is long extinct, and there are very few surviving methods for making spirit devices now."
"However, we cannot rule out the possibility that those major factions have searched these ruins and found some spirit devices with powerful offensive capabilities."
"Hm, I still want to continue researching spirit hidden weapons," Tang San decided firmly. He wanted to use his free time from study and training to fully understand the core spirit arrays on that spirit device crystal stone and create weapons surpassing Tang Sect's hidden weapons!
Then, Tang San used his first soul skill: Life Accumulation. The soul ring lit up briefly, the Blue Silver Grass trembled, but nothing else happened.
"Is that it?" Zhou Qing raised an eyebrow.
"You know what Life Accumulation does, right? It protects the heart meridian and can enhance other soul skills' effects. Since Blue Silver Grass only has this one soul skill, it can't demonstrate the enhancement of another skill. Also, I'm not badly injured now, so I don't need heart meridian protection," Tang San said, somewhat speechless, but continued, "However, after activating this soul skill, a special energy formed within Blue Silver Grass, flowing through my meridians and temporarily strengthening their resilience."
"So this energy entered your body?" Zhou Qing asked.
"Uh... yes, why?" Tang San was puzzled.
"Try using Xuan Jade Hand," Zhou Qing suggested.
Instantly—
Tang San understood. Since this peculiar energy generated by activating the soul skill flowed through his meridians, the power of the Xuan Jade Hand skill should also be enhanced!
Spirit weapon and soul skill are one!
Xuantian Gong and Xuan Jade Hand are one!
Tang San clenched both palms, gathered his soul power, and unleashed Xuan Jade Hand. The strange energy also flowed into the technique.
Cold wisps appeared, and both hands turned to the color of white jade.
"It really works!" Tang San slapped a nearby large stone. The stone cracked, and wisps of white cold mist floated around it.
This was the coldness that only came after training the Xuan Jade Hand to a certain level.
"How much did the power increase exactly?" Zhou Qing asked.
"About fifty percent," Tang San replied.
Tang San knew the strength of his own Xuan Jade Hand thoroughly. That strike was definitely fifty percent stronger than when he did not activate the first soul skill.
"That's very good. This effect isn't even possessed by the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect."
Zhou Qing was not exaggerating. The soul masters of the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect only provide six types of enhancements: strength, agility (speed), soul power, defense, attack, and attributes.
Tang San's enhancement was a direct fifty-percent increase in the power of his soul skill.
Although this skill only worked on himself, it was almost equal to the enhancement effect a fourth-ring level soul master from the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect could provide. The sect's default enhancement is ten percent, and every extra soul ring increases all enhancement-type soul skills by another ten percent. A fourth-ring sect soul master thus has a fifty-percent enhancement ability.
Isn't this exactly equal to Tang San's soul skill enhancement?
"Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect? I can't compare."
Regarding the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect, Teacher Mo Hen explained the distribution and overview of the continent's major factions in the first class. Everyone on the continent knew about the sect's enhancement abilities. Even those who never attended junior soul master academies could say a few things about it, so Tang San understood that his soul skill, which only enhances himself, was far inferior to the sect's effects.
"Don't belittle yourself. Both of us have top-tier spirit weapons. The future is bright!" Zhou Qing encouraged Tang San and then brought up another topic, "Your right hand..."