Wang Chen's gaze turned toward Mingdu, his expression thoughtful. The six black soul rings around him emitted a faint, ghostly glow, highlighting his powerful and mysterious presence.
For most Soul Masters, three years of time might not bring much improvement.
But for Wang Chen, three years was enough for him to transform from a weak, powerless ant into a formidable expert possessing remarkable strength.
He now possessed the cultivation of a Soul Emperor, six black soul rings, a physique no weaker than that of a Soul Saint, spiritual power at the level of a Soul Douluo, and was even a seventh-rank Soul Engineer.
One had to know that Wang Chen was still not yet fifteen years old.
In the original story, even the geniuses Xiao Hongchen and Meng Hongchen who shocked Shrek Academy had only reached the Soul King level at this age.
What a terrifying cultivation speed that was—and his soul power cultivation was, in fact, the weakest of his attributes.
To have achieved such enormous improvement in only three years was inseparable from Wang Chen's diligent cultivation, but also from the immense power of his golden finger, the Black Book, and the Spirit Life Gold.
On the Douluo Continent, a genius with innate full soul power—if relying purely on cultivation and excluding external opportunities—could, on average, increase their rank by about five levels per year during the Soul Elder and Soul Ancestor stages.
By the time they reached the Soul King stage, even such geniuses could only increase by two or three levels per year through sheer hard work. (This data is not made up but based on figures compiled from the original novel.)
However, thanks to the cultivation method Tongmai Gong (Through-Vein Art)—which had been deduced through the Black Book's second function, the crystal mark—Wang Chen's cultivation efficiency was twice that of others.
During the Soul Elder and Soul Ancestor stages, Wang Chen spent only two years to break through to the Soul King level with ease.
Even after reaching the Soul King stage, when leveling up soul power became far more time-consuming,
Wang Chen was still able to increase by five to six levels per year.
Of course, even with this speed, it would normally take him at least four years to reach level sixty and become a Soul Emperor.
The reason he was able to reach the Soul Emperor realm within just three years was because, after his spiritual power reached the Soul Saint level,
he expended all his spiritual energy to perform a second deduction of the Soul Ring Tempering Secret Technique.
Based on the insights gained from that deduction—after developing the Soul Ring Explosion Secret Technique—he made yet another breakthrough, creating an even higher-level secret art: the Soul Ring Replacement Secret Technique.
This Soul Ring Replacement Technique was incredibly intricate. It allowed him to strip away a soul ring he no longer wanted and then absorb a new one in its place.
Of course, this secret art had severe side effects.
Once a Soul Master absorbed a soul ring, it fused with their body and martial soul.
Trying to forcibly remove it afterward caused tremendous damage.
The stronger the ring being removed, the greater the injury to the Soul Master's body.
Besides the immense harm, the new soul ring being replaced had to come from the same species of soul beast as the one removed; otherwise, a rejection reaction would occur.
The latter condition was still manageable—he could always search for the same species of soul beast.
But the former—the enormous damage caused by removing the soul ring—was truly terrifying and deadly.
It was only because Wang Chen's body had absorbed the Spirit Life Gold, making his life force incredibly strong and his recovery speed extraordinary,
and because the Soul Ring Replacement Secret Technique deduced by the Black Book was sufficiently refined,
that he could even attempt such a dangerous thing.
Otherwise, for ordinary Soul Masters—without an exquisite technique and without an immensely powerful life force—
to recklessly attempt removing their own soul ring would amount to two words: suicide.
Even removing a mere ten-year soul ring would be fatal to an ordinary Soul Master.
The best possible outcome would still be damaging one's life essence and severely injuring one's martial soul beyond repair.
Some might even find that after removing a soul ring, they could no longer absorb new ones, effectively crippling themselves forever.
After developing the Soul Ring Replacement Secret Technique, Wang Chen used it cautiously.
He first removed his first two hundred-year soul rings one by one.
Once he felt confident he could endure the backlash from a thousand-year soul ring, he proceeded to remove his third ring.
Even with such caution, when he removed the third soul ring—a five-thousand-year ring—it caused excruciating pain and left him gravely injured on the spot.
Originally, Wang Chen had intended to remove his fourth soul ring as well, but after seeing how severe the backlash was from merely a five-thousand-year ring,
he didn't dare attempt to remove the fourth one—after all, that was a ten-thousand-year soul ring, and the recoil would be far deadlier than that of a thousand-year ring.
His instincts told him that if he dared remove the fourth soul ring now, he might very well lose his life.
At least with his current physique and life force, he absolutely could not remove the fourth soul ring.
He would have to wait until his physical qualities improved further before attempting it.
Fortunately, the injuries Wang Chen suffered from removing the soul rings healed quickly under the immense vitality of the Spirit Life Gold.
Afterward, Wang Chen spent more than a month searching alone before finally finding soul beasts of the same species as his first three rings, each over twenty thousand years old.
After several days of effort, he successfully absorbed three black soul rings in place of his old ones. His cultivation immediately advanced several levels,
soaring to the peak of the Soul King realm, and then breaking through the bottleneck directly into level sixty—the Soul Emperor realm.
This was the reason why Wang Chen could become a Soul Emperor within just three short years.
At present, Wang Chen's exact soul power level was sixty-three, and he possessed six soul skills.
Although his first three soul rings had been replaced, because the species of soul beasts was the same, the nature of the amplifications remained similar.
However, the amplification ratio had now doubled, and the overall range of enhancement had expanded greatly.
Wang Chen's fourth soul skill, however, was different from the previous three—it was not an amplification-type skill but a functional one.
His fourth soul ring came from a Lightning Bird that had cultivated for over ten thousand years.
The Lightning Bird possessed astonishing speed and incredible piercing power—and it even mastered a teleportation ability.
Wang Chen had originally hunted the Lightning Bird hoping to gain an amplification soul skill for speed or penetration.
But things didn't go as planned.
Soul skills were not fixed; even the same species of soul beast could produce different skills when absorbed by different people.
Thus, instead of gaining an amplification skill for speed or penetration,
this soul ring granted Wang Chen a spatial-type soul skill.
His fourth soul skill was called Blink (Shun).
With it, his Tool Spirit martial soul could teleport itself and whatever it was attached to within a distance of fifty meters.
After each use, it required a five-minute cooldown before it could be used again.
Of course, it could also be used consecutively, but at double the soul power cost,
and at most, it could be used three times in succession—after which the cooldown became fifteen minutes.
Normally, the Tool Spirit martial soul could only attach to non-living objects.
However, Wang Chen, as the master of the Tool Spirit martial soul, was an exception,
because his martial soul was a part of his own body—the two were one.
Therefore, the Tool Spirit could teleport along with Wang Chen himself.