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A 100,000-year soul ring can provide an immense power boost.
By absorbing the 100,000-year Crimson Gold Bird soul ring as his fifth, along with the concurrent absorption of a substantial amount of life force, Kong Deming's physical strength had reached at least the level 4 threshold Su Yu had mentioned.
Once he harmonized the conflict between his martial spirits, the threshold for absorbing the sixth soul ring would drop to level 3!
Absorbing a 100,000-year soul ring as the sixth ring would pose no issue at all! The physical enhancement from absorbing a 100,000-year soul ring would also enable Kong Deming to make faster progress toward the absorption of his seventh soul ring.
Kong Deming's first martial spirit has a perfectly balanced soul ring setup: two yellow, two purple, four black, and one red.
Due to the soul ring interconnection within the first martial spirit, its overall quality continues to suppress the second martial spirit. Kong Deming would need to temporarily enhance the second martial spirit with runes and harmonize the conflict between the two martial spirits.
However, there's another factor Kong Deming must consider while absorbing his soul rings.
That is, the second martial spirit might end up suppressing the first martial spirit.
The second martial spirit already possesses soul rings of 10,000, 30,000, 50,000, 60,000, and 100,000 years.
In the last four rings, if all were replaced with 100,000-year rings, it would push the second martial spirit to the ninth ring.
No, it wouldn't need to reach the ninth ring—by the eighth ring, with four 100,000-year rings, the synergy from the eight soul rings would cause the pressure from the second martial spirit, the Sun, to completely surpass that of the first martial spirit.
The reverse suppression would be far more troublesome.
Therefore, the most sensible approach is to assign all soul rings for the second martial spirit to be above 10,000 years, with no more than two 100,000-year soul rings.
If Kong Deming's body is strong enough to withstand the reversed conflict between the martial spirits, he might consider absorbing three 100,000-year rings.
However, five 100,000-year soul rings are out of the question.
But doesn't this still leave at least two as a target?
The sooner they're absorbed, the higher the cost-effectiveness of the physical enhancement provided by the 100,000-year rings.
This would also allow him to absorb other soul rings more quickly.
To put it another way, if the sixth ring absorbs a 50,000-year soul ring, Kong Deming might need to train his body to compensate for the physical deficit, spending several years on this before being able to absorb the seventh ring.
On the other hand, if the sixth ring absorbs a 100,000-year soul ring, he might be able to absorb the seventh ring immediately.
In essence, it's better to absorb the higher-quality soul rings first, as this gives a higher cost-to-benefit ratio.
For the same six 10,000-year rings, three 100,000-year rings would result in the same soul ring conflict pressure between the two martial spirits once the rings are absorbed.
However, one approach allows for the absorption of three 100,000-year rings in the first eight soul rings, increasing the physical strength to its peak before the ninth ring, where the conflict between the first and second martial spirits will intensify.
The other approach saves one 100,000-year soul ring until the ninth ring, leaving it to be absorbed later.
Although the physical strength difference after absorption might not be significant, the danger involved in absorbing the ninth ring would be noticeably different.
In conclusion, Kong Deming has chosen to absorb a 100,000-year soul ring for the sixth ring.
This decision has nothing to do with Su Yu's persuasion.
Moreover, Su Yu wasn't entirely wrong in what he said.
By absorbing the 100,000-year rings first, when the strength of the first martial spirit starts to feel inadequate by the eighth or ninth ring, Kong Deming could look for rare herbs or treasures to possibly compensate for the first martial spirit's strength.
Let's just say, the power of persuasion is unbeatable. Ahem, not persuasion, Su Yu was merely offering a suggestion.
"This soul ring hunting mission might take a while. It could take a month, two months, or even three months, and it could stretch as far as six months. Be prepared," Kong Deming warned.
For this soul ring hunt, he was heading to the Evil Spirit Forest.
The Evil Eye Tyrants prefer to live in the hottest, most humid environments. Though they are all mental-type soul beasts, they can simultaneously meet the needs of both the Sun and Silver Moon martial spirits.
Their soul rings offer a monstrous boost to mental power.
Kong Deming's first martial spirit, Silver Moon, has a 100,000-year Evil Eye Tyrant soul ring as its ninth ring.
In his ideal plan, the Sun martial spirit would also receive a 100,000-year soul ring from the Evil Eye Tyrant.
Initially, Kong Deming had planned to place this soul ring as the ninth ring, but now, considering the advantages, he decided to absorb the 100,000-year soul ring earlier. He no longer hesitated and prepared to absorb the Evil Eye Tyrant soul ring first.
The restrictions on absorbing soul rings are not just about physical strength; mental power is also a limitation. However, this is a restriction most soul masters never encounter. It's only a factor for twin martial spirits or when a soul master has repeatedly absorbed rings beyond their level.
By absorbing the Evil Eye Tyrant soul ring first, Kong Deming could better prepare for the next soul rings to come.
Lastly, there was an idea that had suddenly occurred to Kong Deming.
Could absorbing the Evil Eye Tyrant soul ring in a harmonized state achieved through the Twin Martial Spirit Fusion technique lead to a beneficial mutation? For example, could the Sun martial spirit and the Silver Moon martial spirit, using the two Evil Eye Tyrant soul rings to establish a connection, greatly increase their compatibility, and in turn, truly unlock the martial spirit fusion technique?
To explore this possibility, Kong Deming had done some research.
Throughout royal history, there had been records of the Sun and Moon Fusion technique, but the exact method of achieving it had been lost to time.
After receiving Kong Deming's message, Su Yu returned to Sun-Moon Hall and first took some time off from Jing Hongchen.
As his teacher had mentioned, this mission could take anywhere from two to three months, or even up to six months. On top of that, Su Yu had the matter of his position as the director of the research institute hanging over him.
With the institute opening in two months, he needed to give Jing Hongchen a heads-up in advance.
After leaving Jing Hongchen's office, Su Yu headed to Xuan Ziwen's laboratory.
Last time, Su Yu had expressed his interest in soul engineer armor.
Following his advice, Xuan Ziwen had approached Jing Hongchen and learned a great deal from him.
However, this also came with restrictions, the most important being that as part of the deal, Xuan Ziwen was now fully tied to Mingde Hall.
This wasn't necessarily a bad condition.
Su Yu entered Xuan Ziwen's lab.
"Senior Brother, how's the research on the basic battle armor going?"
Thanks to Su Yu's guidance, Xuan Ziwen had chosen not to continue solely focusing on perfecting the level 8 soul engineer armor.
Instead, he had started working on a system of progressively more advanced battle armor, beginning with basic armor. This was Su Yu's suggestion, and it revealed his own ambitious vision.
Creating a battle armor system was a clear indication of Su Yu's ideology and goals.
Especially his idea of fully integrating soul engineer armor with soul masters—this made Xuan Ziwen realize that Su Yu truly wanted to merge the professions of soul masters and soul engineers.
This vision ignited Xuan Ziwen's passion for the research.
"The theoretical foundations for the basic battle armor are nearly complete, and the core formation's modular testing has passed. Now, we're just one step away—the actual production!"
Once production was completed and the results met expectations, they could proceed with the development of intermediate and advanced battle armors.
(End of Chapter)