Aspiring to the Immortal Path
chapter-269

“Don’t move!”

Holding down the little tiger, Tang Jie tried to treat his wounds as gently as possible. The little guy groaned in pain, and even feeding him the eagle’s meat only soothed him for a little while.

The battle with the eagle fiend might have ended very quickly, but it had been the most dangerous battle Tang Jie had fought in recent years. Not only had he been injured, the little tiger had almost died.

They had both been of lower grade, yet the eagle fiend had been much stronger than the lynx.

There was really no telling how strong the other fiends were. If they were stronger than the eagle fiend, then he was in trouble, and the thought made his heart grow heavy.

After applying the medicine, Tang Jie had the little tiger rest. He once more opened up the jade box and used the pearl to absorb the eagle fiend’s soul.

He had originally planned to refine the eagle fiend’s soul using demonic fire, but considering that refining through demonic fire took 49 days, it would be of little help to Tang Jie in the present. Thus, he decided to try soul congealing. Even if he didn’t know how to use it, it was still better than waiting 49 days.

The Softscent Jade transformed into a warm current. Congealing the lynx soul had taken more than half of the current, and Tang Jie judged that the remainder wouldn’t be enough to congeal the soul of the eagle fiend. Fortunately, soul congealing had no restrictions on materials, though different materials would lead to different attributes. He didn’t know which material would be best, so he decided to feed the Soul Refining Pearl all the other materials except the Softscent Jade, placing the pearl on the pile and sending in spiritual energy so that it could absorb their essence.

The pearl ignored most of the materials Tang Jie had laid out, but it instantly absorbed the last piece of Blazeraven Essence. Besides that, a small fiend pellet was also absorbed.

Finally, it absorbed a bottle of toxin he had gotten from Wanderer Pentavenom and also three spirit coins that he had accidentally dropped into the pile.

Tang Jie hadn’t expected the Soul Refining Pearl to have such a broad appetite, even eating spirit coins.

Spirit coins were made by the major sects from materials like Nimbus Metal and Inkcloud Stone, so they were very receptive to spiritual energy. They could be used to make formations and even cast spells, so they had some practical value alongside their monetary value. The Soul Refining Pearl had probably eaten the coins because it had sensed these materials.

Once some of the materials had been absorbed, Tang Jie once more tried to congeal the eagle fiend’s soul. Through his guidance, the eagle soul gradually took form. The other fiend souls in the pearl howled as if they wanted to enjoy the warm current too, but they had no means of obtaining it and could only batter away. This actually caused the eagle fiend’s congealing soul to start to crack.

Tang Jie grimaced. He knew that he probably made a mistake in refining and congealing souls at the same time, putting him in quite a predicament.

But at this point, he just had to push through. He quickly circulated energy and accelerated the congealing.

The red eagle fiend soul quickly began to transform. As the other fiend souls constantly battered against it and under the light of the dazzling demonic fires, it gradually began to leave the pearl.

Tang Jie tried to hasten the fiend soul’s progress out, ignoring the fiend souls still within the pearl.

This clear bias caused the fiend souls in the pearl to howl in anger, unable to accept this. As the eagle soul was slowly pulled out of the Soul Refining Pearl, the remaining fiend souls suddenly roared and charged at the eagle soul.

This collision caused the Soul Refining Pearl to erupt with light, and a massive energy shockwave radiated from the pearl and blasted Tang Jie back.

Tang Jie tumbled in the air, even throwing up some blood.

“Shit, I messed up,” Tang Jie said in alarm.

He hadn’t expected an ordinary soul congealing to result in something like this. He could only hope that the Soul Refining Pearl hadn’t been destroyed as a result.

But Tang Jie saw that the Soul Refining Pearl was just sitting on the ground, and the ten-some fiend souls within were beginning to fade away.

Above the pearl, a phantom of the eagle fiend floated in a mist.

Unlike the lynx soul, it was not completely frozen. Rather, its body was a rainbow of colors and covered in mist, and at its core was a point of white light that looked noble and resplendent beyond compare.

“What is this?” Tang Jie was shocked.

The statuesque rainbow eagle suddenly opened its eyes, cried out, and flew at Tang Jie.

Tang Jie waved his saber to block, and there was a flash of light. The rainbow flame collided against the Heartbreak Saber and disappeared in a radiant explosion.

Tang Jie looked around but found nothing. That eagle soul that had cost him so many materials was just gone.

Tang Jie was speechless.

The Soul Refining Pearl was considered a famous treasure of the cultivation world, so why did everything get weird in his hands? First it had turned the lynx soul into a useless popsicle, and then the eagle had exploded and disappeared.

Tang Jie could only put away the Soul Refining Pearl. There were no more fiends within the pearl, so the Soul Refining Pearl was once more exuding that soul-seizing sensation. Tang Jie knew that this meant that the Soul Refining Pearl was undamaged, and he mentally exhaled in relief.

At this time, Yiyi said, “Those bad guys have captured the others and are coming back for you!”

“Any losses?”

“None.”

“None… Understood. Yiyi, come back. There’s no need for you to keep watching them. I will be waiting for you in front of the formation.”

Tang Jie continued to make his way to the slope.

The Yi Wood Azure Heaven Formation was the true deciding factor in this battle.

As he was walking, Tang Jie suddenly felt the Heartbreak Saber heating up in his hand. Looking down, he saw that the blade was glowing with a red light.

The red light curled around the saber, which began to tremble and radiate a light akin to the warm glow of sunset.

“Could it be…” Tang Jie raised the saber, an idea coming to mind.

Could it be that the eagle soul hadn’t disappeared, but had instead entered the saber?

Then wouldn’t that be…

“A weapon soul!” Tang Jie muttered.

The Heartbreak Saber erupted with light and flew out of Tang Jie’s hand. As it flew into the sky, Tang Jie saw a phantom appear on the saber: none other than that of the eagle soul.

The eagle soul opened its wings and let out a noiseless screech. The Heartbreak Saber droned, its blade flashing with flames.

Tang Jie waved his hand, not using any kind of spell to control it, but the Heartbreak Saber seemed to hear its master’s call. It flew back down and into Tang Jie’s hand, and the eagle soul once more disappeared into the blade. But there was now an image carved into the blade: the figure of the eagle soul.

And two little wings had grown near the handle, serving as a handguard.

Tang Jie was dumbfounded by the sight.

A weapon soul! A real weapon soul!

Weapon souls were normally created through only two methods. The first was to use rare materials to create an art relic, and after countless months of precipitation, a weapon soul would be born. The second method was for the cultivator to use the art relic over a long period of time, nourishing the weapon with their own sweat and blood and the lives of countless others.

As for transplanting souls to create weapon souls, Tang Jie had never even heard of such a thing. If weapon souls were that easy to make, soul weapons wouldn’t be so valuable.

Tang Jie could have never imagined that a combination of coincidences and errors would end up granting his Heartbreak Saber a weapon soul. He didn’t know if this was a function of the Soul Refining Pearl or because he had been attempting soul refining and soul congealing at the same time, but he knew that he had struck gold.

A weapon with a weapon soul was no longer the same as a regular spell weapon or art relic. Not only was its power greatly increased, it could move on its own. Most importantly, weapon souls were intelligent existences and could absorb weapon seals on their own. In other words, they could essentially evolve on their own.

Every soul weapon had different requirements for evolution, but so long as these conditions were reached, it could keep evolving. The level at which its evolution finally stopped would decide the quality of the soul weapon.

The Heartbreak Saber had been a middle-grade spell weapon, but now that it had a weapon soul, the Heartbreak Saber had been directly promoted to an upper-grade spell weapon, and one of the best of this class.

But as Tang Jie had not added any seals to it, it could only exhibit the power of the middle grade for now.

Seeing the situation, Tang Jie immediately used the Seal Parting spell.

This wasn’t to remove seals, but to use the surveying effect of the Seal Parting spell to understand the Heartbreak Saber’s current situation.

The Heartbreak Saber was a middle-grade spell weapon with twenty-four seals. Twelve of these seals focused on breaking armor, eight of them focused on toughness, and four of them focused on recovery. This was the typical example of a close-combat weapon, tough and lacking in spell arts.

But upon using the Seal Parting spell, Tang Jie immediately sensed that, after gaining a weapon soul, the Heartbreak Saber now had space for enchantment, and it was particularly amenable to fire.

Considering that the Soul Refining Pearl had absorbed a piece of Blazeraven Essence, and considering that the spirit coins the Soul Refining Pearl had absorbed and the Heartbreak Saber both had Inkcloud Stone as part of their composition, Tang Jie gradually began to realize that the cause of all this might not have been the chaos from earlier, but the materials that had been absorbed.

As for which was more important, Tang Jie would have to do some more testing to find the answer. But his first priority was to test the power of the Heartbreak Saber.

Tang Jie threw out a series of seals.

In the last two years, when he had nothing to do, he would spend time at the Forging Platform, removing seals and shattering weapons. He had long ago become familiar with the various seals. Now that the Heartbreak Saber had a weapon soul, he could just directly apply the seals to it rather than worrying about the design.

He first used the rather commonplace Fire Trigram Seal. The Fire Trigram Seal was used in a set of twelve, and once applied, the spell weapon would release flames when it was swung. It was the fire seal that Tang Jie was the most familiar with.

Once this set of fire seals had been applied, the Heartbreak Saber flashed with flame, but to Tang Jie’s surprise, the flame was green.

“Green? What’s going on?”

Fire Trigram fire was just ordinary fire. There was no reason for it to produce green flames.

Tang Jie suddenly recalled the bottle of toxin from Wanderer Pentavenom. His heart trembling, he grabbed the saber and swung it, unleashing a gout of flame at a large tree.

The large tree was unaffected at first, but then it toppled with a groan, the site of the cut withering away.

Sure enough, it was a poison flame.

Tang Jie now understood that the attribute of the congealed soul really was closely connected to the materials absorbed. It was very possible that the more attributes, the more complicated the abilities, and also that the more it absorbed, the stronger it became.

The problem was that Tang Jie had no antidote for this poison flame.

Since the Soul Refining Pearl had absorbed only one bottle of poison, the poison wasn’t very strong and was useless against Tang Jie, but it would be a problem if the poison flame were used on others. He would have to think of a solution later.

As for the lynx soul, Tang Jie finally understood what the problem was.

It had been made entirely using Softscent Jade, so it would probably only work when it came into contact with Softscent Jade.

In other words, it would best be used on the puppet!

It was no wonder Tang Jie couldn’t find a use for it. To save on spirit stone energy, Tang Jie had yet to take out the puppet.

“Big Brother, are you there yet? The fiends are almost here!” Yiyi’s voice rang out.

“I’ll be there soon!” Tang Jie shouted back. He ran toward the slope while continuing to apply seals to the Heartbreak Saber… This saber had yet to reach its upgrade limit, after all.