That wisp of smoke was silver in colour, expressing the grade of this monster. William didn't hurry to absorb it as he first waited for his blood to entirely cover the monster's body before making his move.
All he did was to think about sucking this wisp and the wisp moved. Like being attracted by a hidden force, that smoke moved inside William's body.
Then everything went blank in his eyes while William entered a state of trance.
That wisp of silver smoke started to melt slowly and merge with his spirit. William stayed in such a state for a longer time than he predicted.
He imagined it would take roughly half a day, a day at most. But it took far longer than that. For four consecutive days, William remained in his position while his spirit kept absorbing the spirit of the monster.
*Crack!*
Just staying like this for a long time left a stiffening effect on his weak body. The moment he moved; his body issued cracking sounds before opening his eyes.
A flash of silver light passed there, before it instantly vanished. William looked around and couldn't help but feel strange when he noticed the faint layer of dust on his body.
"Did I take a whole day here or what?" He wasn't aware of the time he spent here. He focused solely on the merging process, but from the bright world outside he could tell it was already daytime.
"Let's see what changed," as he finished this merge, he didn't even try to eat or drink something. He took out a spirit crystal and one of the candles before he started assessing his power.
The moment he injected his spirit power inside the crystal, the entire crystal shone in bright silver light. "I passed the spirit formation stage and entered the spirit foundation one… That's great!"
He expected this fox's spirit to just bring his own outside the mud phase into the spirit formation stage. But now that silver light was a trademark for the spirit foundation stage.
For a spirit to be in the mud phase, it wouldn't show any shape at all. At spirit formation stage, the spirit would show a faint shape of the monster it belonged to.
Just like Berry's case, her spirit power took the form of a phoenix and a dragon. So, she was in the spirit formation stage.
In the spirit foundation stage, the spirit would start to show small circular movement around, taking what could be said as pillar bases in the spirit. And even before his spirit could take a full form, he noticed the presence of these pillar bases in his spirit.
As the light stabilised, William started to inspect the crystal. What he saw made his jaw drop without knowing if he should laugh or not.
"This… I didn't imagine I even took that bastard's spirit away!"
Just inside the crystal, a small version of a fox with two tails appeared. The fox was smaller in size, with faint silver fur covering its body.
William knew it wasn't like the fox he killed and absorbed its spirit. If so then that monster only had one tail, not two! Not to mention the difference in the shape and colour of the fur.
The monster he killed had feathers and not fur. No matter how William saw it, it was a miniature version of the nine tailed fox he fought before dying and coming here.
"There is that back bone extending over its back, so it can be considered as a mixture between the two foxes or what?" William muttered to himself while closely inspecting that fox spirit he had.
But aside from that backbone, everything else was just similar to the old enemy of his.
"Two tails… Hmm… Never imagined that damned fox had to gain its tails by advancing his spirit grade," this was a new knowledge he didn't know about his enemy.
Gaining two tails was linked to having achieved the spirit foundation stage, which was considered phase two in the spirit evolution path. Thinking like that matched the nine tails that fox had when William fought him. That fox was in the ninth spirit stage, which was trying to ascend to the legendary tenth stage and be a god.
When William thought about it, he couldn't help but feel a bit weird. It was a very simple conclusion, yet neither anyone managed to link things together before.
"So, I got your devouring ability plus your spirit, hehehe! I can't imagine the look on your face if you ever heard about that!"
William was satisfied by this. He knew such a result happened because he accidentally absorbed the spirit of a monster related to that damn fox. Or else his fox spirit wouldn't have grown into such a state.
He realised now he ascended two stages directly thanks to such coincidence. And that made him grin evilly.
Then he started to count the spirit power spots inside the crystals. "Eighty points? I gained almost thirty points in just one day! Wow!"
He didn't know he was here for four days. But even if he knew, gaining such an increase in the span of four days was already something good.
He gained such an increase thanks to the little modification the method to raise one's spirit experienced in his body. His devouring ability made sure to absorb spirit power from that fox's core, adding thirty points to his tally.
In usual times, few points would be added to one's spirit power count, no more than ten points. But others didn't have his heaven defying devouring ability which enabled him to get more spirit power.
But the good news ended here. When he sought the dead monster body for its core, he was disappointed to find nothing there.
"Did I consume it while absorbing its spirit? Was it the reason behind my spirit power increase?" he frowned but the facts were there in front of his eyes.