Eighteen years later, a tremendous roar echoed from Fire Cloud Island.
The sound reverberated throughout the entire island, and even the perpetually lingering fire clouds above were churned into rapidly swirling streams by the force of the sound.
Fortunately, there were no other islands within hundreds of miles of Fire Cloud Island, otherwise it would have surely attracted the attention of other cultivators.
After that day, Fire Cloud Island returned to its calm state, as if nothing had happened.
Seven years later, Zhang Ling left Fire Cloud Island. "Heh, this seclusion wasn't short," he muttered, flying towards Myriad Manifestation City on his escape light.
He continued to murmur to himself as if talking to himself.
The most gratifying thing for Zhang Ling after more than twenty years of seclusion was the successful refinement of his second soul, which had already taken control of the Xuan Turtle's body several years ago.
At this moment, within a black spirit beast pouch at his waist, the Xuan Turtle's massive body had shrunk to a size of just over ten zhang, occupying most of the pouch's space.
Piled within were stacks of water-attribute and ice-attribute spirit stones, including quite a few mid-grade ones. The Xuan Turtle's large mouth opened and closed, devouring more than a dozen spirit stones with each bite, crunching and chewing.
The amount of spirit stones it consumed was even greater than what Zhang Ling himself needed for cultivation. However, he didn't feel the slightest bit of heartache.
The icy cold energy around it was dense. If Zhang Ling hadn't had his second soul deliberately suppress the Xuan Turtle's aura to the lowest level, the spirit beast pouch might have burst open.
It seems I need to find a larger spirit beast pouch, Zhang Ling thought to himself.
The one controlling the Xuan Turtle's body at this moment was naturally the second soul, but it was no longer the seventh-tier Azure Water Turtle's demon soul. Instead, over the past ten years, he had re-condensed a second soul, using the Xuan Turtle's original demon soul.
After discovering that the Blood Soul Cauldron could expel the turbid energy from the desolate beast's demon soul, he naturally looked down on an ordinary seventh-tier demon soul. Moreover, a seventh-tier demon soul couldn't unleash the Xuan Turtle's full power.
With a better option available, spending a little more time was no problem.
It took him three years to use the Blood Soul Cauldron to remove the turbid energy from the Xuan Turtle's demon soul. Although the removal of turbid energy also caused some of the Xuan Turtle's demon soul's power to dissipate,
reducing the beast's demon soul's power somewhat, the cleansed Xuan Turtle's demon soul was still several times stronger than the seventh-tier Azure Water Turtle's demon soul.
Then, using a secret method from the Xuanpin Spirit Transformation Art, he directly introduced the Xuan Turtle's demon soul into his body for assimilation. It took more than ten years, and he only completed the assimilation not long ago.
This newly refined second soul was even more powerful, and since it was originally the Xuan Turtle's demon soul, it was perfectly compatible with the Xuan Turtle's body. There was also no rejection of the eighth-tier demon core within the beast's body.
As for the turbid energy that had also contaminated the Xuan Turtle's body, it was much easier to deal with.
As long as the Xuan Turtle devoured a large amount of spiritual energy, accelerating the flow of its own blood energy, it could gradually expel the turbid energy. With the assistance of the Spirit Eye Stone and the Blood Soul Cauldron, it wouldn't take many years to completely remove it.
Now, the second soul was controlling the Xuan Turtle. Although it wasn't in complete control yet, the strength it could unleash was already extremely powerful.
Zhang Ling had previously verified this by having his second soul control the Xuan Turtle and fight against himself. He discovered that he was no match at all, and it was difficult to even break through the Xuan Turtle's defenses.
Now that he had this Xuan Turtle, it was equivalent to having a spirit beast with the strength of an eighth-tier demon beast. An eighth-tier demon beast was equivalent to a nascent soul stage demon beast that could transform into human form.
Turtle-type demon beasts were already known for their astonishing defenses, and this beast also possessed a regenerative body. Even a nascent soul stage old monster wouldn't find it easy to kill this beast.
Although he didn't know if it had truly reached the level of a transformed demon king, after all, the second soul's consciousness was his own, a human consciousness. Zhang Ling didn't have much to go on in terms of how much strength could be unleashed when fighting with a demon beast's body.
After all, he didn't know how transformed demon kings cultivated, or if they had cultivation methods.
However, since there was demon race writing in the cultivation world, there might actually be cultivation methods for transformed demon beasts. If he could find a suitable demon race cultivation method for the Xuan Turtle to cultivate, it would definitely be able to unleash its full strength.
Zhang Ling imagined, but whether he could find such a cultivation method would depend on luck. Now that he had the Xuan Turtle, he had a lot more confidence even if he encountered nascent soul level enemies.
As for the second soul refined with the seventh-tier Azure Water Turtle's demon soul, it had already been devoured by the Xuan Turtle's demon soul. Now he only had this secondary soul refined with the Xuan Turtle's demon soul.
Although the Xuanpin Spirit Transformation secret method was magical, it had many restrictions. Although it didn't explicitly prevent cultivators from refining a third soul, or even more secondary souls,
Zhang Ling felt a strange sense of separation in his soul when he refined the second soul with the Xuan Turtle's demon soul. His own soul was clearly affected.
At that time, he actually had two second souls, plus his own body, making three of himself. He also discovered that his control over both second souls had weakened somewhat.
This was very dangerous, especially the second soul refined with the Xuan Turtle's demon soul. If it rebelled, he wouldn't be able to control it with his current strength. It was also possible that he would be taken over immediately.
With this concern, he directly had the Xuan Turtle devour the Azure Water Turtle's demon soul. Sure enough, this strange feeling never appeared again during subsequent cultivation.
At the same time, he had to merge the second soul into his body every once in a while, constantly assimilating it to eliminate this potential danger.
This kind of clone secret technique wasn't necessarily better the more you had. After all, it wasn't easy to find a suitable body. Although they could cultivate on their own, it would take a very long time and experience to cultivate to a certain level.
The reason for this departure was to search for a material called Cloud Swallowing Stone.
During this period of seclusion, although he wasted a lot of time condensing his second soul, he also devoted himself to cultivating other secret techniques.
Now, the second layer of the Nine Transformations Soul Refining Art had been completed, and he was starting to cultivate the third layer.
The third layer of the technique was extremely difficult to cultivate, so he thought of the "Spirit Enhancing Powder" that could assist in cultivating this soul refining art.
The Spirit Enhancing Powder required Soul Nourishing Wood, Seven-Colored Seven-Leaf Flowers, and Cloud Swallowing Stone to refine.
Zhang Ling already had the most important Soul Nourishing Wood in his possession, and he had also cultivated more than a dozen Seven-Colored Seven-Leaf Flowers during his seclusion.
This kind of spiritual flower was cultivated from Seven-Leaf Flowers, and it wasn't easy to cultivate. Most Seven-Leaf Flowers could only emit three colors of spiritual light, and those that could emit five colors were even rarer. This wasn't determined by age.
Seven-Leaf Flowers that could emit seven colors were extremely rare, but fortunately, the mysterious yellow pearl in his hand could catalyze spiritual herbs, allowing him to barely cultivate more than a dozen of them.
Now, all that was missing was the Cloud Swallowing Stone. Zhang Ling had never heard of this material before, and he had visited many libraries in Myriad Manifestation City, but he hadn't found any relevant records.
Even so, there was naturally more than one way to find materials in the cultivation world. There were other methods that might yield relevant information.
Zhang Ling planned to go to several secret ghost markets in Myriad Manifestation City to inquire about this material. Places like ghost markets might seem unsavory, but they often had the most well-informed news.
