Chapter 152: Unexpected Windfall

Looking at the fire on his hand, Bai Yunfei muttered, “And who would have thought that I’d gain something from that….”

What had just happened prior to this had been a very strange soul contract process. Bai Yunfei didn’t really know what to expect in a normal situation, but he was very confident that it would not be like this.

He had declined the the soul contract, but Bai Yunfei had managed to take back a wisp of the thunderbird’s soul with him. And from that, he had gained something—a strand of essence thunderseed.

And when he took it, it had fused with his essence fireseed. Although it was practically negligible with just a single strand, it had also given Bai Yunfei a rich enough understanding of several new aspects on learning thunder arts. Furthermore, it would help with his rate of growth.

But the events of today wasn’t something that Bai Yunfei really understood. What really made him happen had been the other thing he had taken into his own body—soulforce.

Back during the soul contract process, the thunderbird had not rejected Bai Yunfei in any capacity and had instead allowed the essence origin and soulforce from its body to mix with Bai Yunfei’s. When Bai Yunfei removed himself from the equation, the thunderbird had been motionless, thus allowing Bai Yunfei to take its soulforce into his own body. Unlike the normal case where this foreign soulforce would dissipate over time, the thunderbird’s soulforce would instead be absorbed into Bai Yunfei’s soulforce and serve to increase his capacity.

And so…that meant Bai Yunfei was already all the more closer to “The Late-stage Soul Sprite realm!” Bai Yunfei shrugged away the fire in his hands and allowed his soulforce to cycle around his body. “I didn’t think that I’d be able to gain so much soulforce in a moment. If I continue onwards like this then….”

“That’s not right either actually. If I were to keep trying this, it’s not a guaranteed thing that I’ll be able to always refuse the soul contracts. Plus, ‘stealing’ soulforce like this could possibly injure the thunderbird and any other soulbeast—I can’t be too greedy….This much already is more than enough.” Bai Yunfei shook his head as if he was looking down on himself for his avarice.

“A Late-stage Soul Sprite. I’m only a small point away. If I have to give a numerical value to it, I should be twenty soulpoints away maybe? Who knows how much more I need, or what threshold I have to pass? I’ll test it in a bit, maybe I’ll become a Late-stage Soul Sprite tonight….”

“But before that, there’s still a question that needs to be answered first….” Bai Yunfei thought for a moment before retrieving several spirit increasing accessories out from his space ring. From when he got them to now, these accessories were only +8 at most. There weren’t many of these to begin with, and Bai Yunfei didn’t want to risk exploding them.

“These increase soulforce when worn, and soul cultivators become stronger with even more soulforce. So according to logic, if I wear these items, I’ll be able to increase my soulforce and cross over this ‘threshold’. But….” Putting the accessories on, Bai Yunfei closed his eyes and waited.

After several moments, Bai Yunfei reopened his eyes to reveal a pensive look. “What a strange feeling. I’ve clearly more soulforce than before, but I didn’t move up a realm. Does that mean to say that wearing items that increase soulforce doesn’t count towards my total? How complicated….”

When it came to spirit increasing accessories, Bai Yunfei had made his own inquiries and research since it related to soulforce, the very basis of what made up a soul cultivator. The most important part was the fact that the soulpoints that were gained with the accessories worn did not give as much as he would normally gain if he cultivated.

He had once believed that if he was close to empty with his soulforce, he could wear one of the spirit increasing accessories and add another hundred soulpoints. Then, with the hundred soulpoints, he could use it up and then take off the item without feeling the drain. Then, he could wear it again and repeat the process—wouldn’t this mean that he would have unlimited soulforce?

Of course, a bug like this wasn’t possible. In the face of the laws to this world, the Upgrade Technique had to be changed to a certain degree so that it would co-exist with those laws. If Bai Yunfei were to have the complete and intact memories of the slider who reincarnated into this world, then he would have been far more familiar with this research. But since his memories were fragmented and sealed into the depth of his soul and his strength was lacking in being able to unlock them, Bai Yunfei could only progress normally.

As a result, Bai Yunfei had been dismayed to find out the results to the experiment. It was not as perfect as he thought. In this example, if Bai Yunfei were to have ten soulpoints and then wear a ring that gave him another hundred soulpoints, he’d have a total of a hundred and ten soulpoints. But then if he used up a hundred soulpoints and then took off the ring, it didn’t mean he’d have ten soulpoints left. How convenient would that be? He’d go into the negatives in fact….that was to say, he’d expend more soulforce than he had and would immediately faint from the overdraft.

Bai Yunfei had spent the rest of his time familiarizing himself with this new portion of soulforce in his body before Jing Mingfeng came in to find him for dinner. It was from him that Bai Yunfei learned that Ye Ting had already formed a soul contract with the thunderbird and became a Soul Ancestor. Bai Yunfei had been rather startled to hear that since he hadn’t felt a thing from his own room. Maybe it was because he was so enthralled in his newly discovered powers, or maybe it was because Ye Ting had purposely masked the influx of energy that came with the soul contract well enough.

And with Jing Mingfeng ‘keeping the peace’ for him, Bai Yunfei was free to spend the rest of the night after dinner upgrading his items,

About an hour later….

Bai Yunfei’s eyes had sparkled when he smiled gleefully at this space ring. “It stockpiles soulpoints? Not bad! Haha, that’s good, my luck today is pretty good! This is an unexpected windfall.”

This was one of the space rings he obtained from the ones from the Beast Taming School. He had already exploded four rings before so he didn’t expect to have one of them to have such a nice additional effect when it reached +10. This could be said to be a small treasure.

“Three hundred soulpoints, that’s enough for me to use the Winged Flame Blades once. If I’m lucky, it can be used as the killing blow!” Bai Yunfei nodded his head in satisfaction before he wore it on his left hand.

Looking at the two space rings on his hands, Bai Yunfei shook his head bitterly. Just slightly, he looked like some sort of rich upstart. But in the end really, as long as it increased his own strength, it wouldn’t really matter.

The ring on his right hand was a space ring that helped recover his soulforce. There was another ring that increase his speed (agility) thanks to it’s +10 effect. He was currently using the speed ring, but if he needed to use the spirit increasing ring, then he could swap it out quick enough to make use of its effects. In the ordinary times, wearing the speed ring would be best. That way, he would be able to deal with trouble should it come at any time.

Bai Yunfei had already felt his vision start to blur from his upgrade session. Shaking his head, he took out another one of his +9 equipment and rubbed his head. “I’ve about 3975 soulpoints in my body…..would this mean the ‘threshold’ to becoming a late-stage Soul Sprite would be 4000 soulpoints?”

“Then let’s go one last time….upgrade!”