Chapter 870: The Art of Soul Ignition and the Third Piece of Cloth

Elemental Affinity: Earth

Upgrade Level: +10 

Attack: 3600

Additional Attack: 1600

Soul Compatibility: 10% 

Equipment Effect: Reduce soulforce consumption of earth-type attacks by 20%. Increase strength of earth-type attacks by 20%.

+10 Additional Effect: 10% Chance to ignore earth-type defenses when attacking. 

Upgrade Requirement: 210 Soulpoints

It didn’t take very long for Bai Yunfei to upgrade the spear to +10, and he was very pleasantly surprised to see what kind of additional effect popped up.

This was a new one.

“Ignore any earth-type defenses!” He crowed to himself. It wasn’t a very high probability, but the parameters were still sufficiently good. Given the parameters, Bai Yunfei would be able to ignore ‘any’ earth-type defenses when attacking…that was a frightening thought.

As unhelpful as the spear seemed at first as a general-use weapon, it could also be considered a godsend in the right circumstances!

And since the cumulative attack power was about 5200, that meant this spear was stronger than even the Fire-tipped Spear.

“Not bad…not bad at all…” Pleased as punch, Bai Yunfei nodded to himself before storing away the spear into the Violet Soul Ring.

Next up after the spear of Huang Shan was the mid-heaven tier armor of his.

Unupgraded, this piece of armor was actually comparable to the defenses of the +10 armor Bai Yunfei was currently wearing. All things considered, Bai Yunfei’s current piece of armor had the ability to strengthen its defenses, so no final verdicts could be made just yet. 

He’d have to see the results of the upgraded armor before he could consider anything.

    ……

Bai Yunfei fell into the second period of silence and contemplation again after he upgraded the armor. This piece of armor had a rather restrictive effect in that it would only work against physical blows. He may as well not have the additional effect if he was hit by an elemental attack, which was the bulk of most of his battles going forward now. His battles were already needing a barrier of elemental energy for each attack, and physical blows were becoming more of a rarity. 

So he wouldn’t change out his current piece of armor for this one.

He stored away the newly-upgraded piece of armor back into a space ring so he could continue looking through the rest of Huang Shan’s ring. There were a few other soul armaments, but most of which weren’t of any special interest besides the rare minerals and herbs and as well as a shocking amount of primal stones.

Done with Huang Shan’s space ring, Bai Yunfei took the ice-type Mid-stage Soul King’s space ring into his hands.

There weren’t many soul armaments that were considered worthy of attention, so Bai Yunfei skipped over them. That didn’t mean they bad, just that Bai Yunfei didn’t want to deal with them for now.

Then he came across a small piece of white cloth.

Several words were scrawled onto this piece of white cloth. Studying the words, Bai Yunfei gasped! This piece of cloth had a soul skill written on it!

The Art of Soul Ignition. 

By using the power of the soul’s origin energy as fuel, ignite the soul. Seal any injuries and return the body to the most optimal state for a short period of time.

Bai Yunfei was thunderstruck by the description he had just read. This was a mysterious soul skill with an effect completely perverse in ability. 

It was in many ways compatible with the ‘Battling’ section of the Dual Flame Artes.

But he couldn’t make a concrete evaluation on how useful this soul skill was. Without seeing how it compared to the Dual Flame Artes ‘Coil’ or ‘Berserk’ modes, there was no way he could say anything.

The soul skill was a double-edged sword where the user would be hurt almost as much as the enemy. Even if a person were to seal up their injuries and fight at the best levels they could, the injuries would only worsen afterward. And even more importantly, this soul skill talked of using the origin energy of the soul as fuel to ignite. This was basically burning away at the soul itself; an act that would surely leave behind lasting marks on the soul.

The act of damaging the soul was something every soul cultivator almost unequivocally shied away from. This soul skill, in other words, was something to be used when in peril and fighting for one’s life. And even then, not many people would be daring enough to use it.

The ice-type Soul King must’ve used this soul skill when he fought against Bai Yunfei, but unfortunately for him, he still wasn’t a match for Bai Yunfei at his very best… 

“It sounds scary to use, but it’s still a soul skill that can save my life potentially. Learning it won’t be a bad thing.” Bai Yunfei murmured. He’d learn this soul skill just in case.

After reading a little bit of the Art of Soul Ignition, Bai Yunfei was able to memorize most of what he read. But the more he read, the more suspicious Bai Yunfei felt about the thing.

Soul skills and training methods were generally recorded on jade slips rather than being written on parchment or cloth. Very rarely was the latter form done, and the Art of Soul Ignition was one of those rare cases. But the more Bai Yunfei paid attention to the white cloth, the stranger the expression on his face became.

He flipped the piece of cloth over only to discover that it wasn’t empty on the other side. Rather than words though, there was a strange pattern scrawled onto it.

“This pattern…” Bai Yunfei narrowed his eyes in consternation as if remembering something.

Several moments passed before he could put his finger to it. Eyes brightening when he did, Bai Yunfei started to go through the Violet Soul Ring to look for something.

Moments later, there was a flash of light before another piece of white cloth appeared! The two new pieces of cloth looked extremely identical to the cloth the Art of Soul Ignition was written on!

He compared the pieces of cloth side by side before adding onto the newest one to the left of one of them.

“I knew it!!”

Bai Yunfei nearly cried aloud when he saw just how perfectly the two pieces of cloth lined up side by side.

He had nearly forgotten about the two mysterious pieces of cloth he gained from a long time ago. But now that he did, Bai Yunfei had now the third piece of cloth to add onto the mystery!

“What kind of image is this supposed to be…”

Pouring over the three pieces of cloth now that they were lined up, Bai Yunfei had a confused gleam in his eyes. The image wasn’t clear enough for him to make heads or tails over, but it was at least better than before. Still, he had no clue on what this image was shaping up to be.

Bai Yunfei had given up on trying to divine the secrets of the cloth a long time, claiming that finding a needle in the ocean would be a lot easier.

But now that he had three pieces of cloth, he was mystified. Was fate really trying to bring him and the pieces of cloth together?

“Is the most important detail left under the fourth piece?” Tilting his head, Bai Yunfei noted that the bottom right corner was still a massive blank.

He gave up a few minutes later and stored away the three pieces of cloth back into the Violet Soul Ring. He had a newfound hope for finding the answer now. Luck was seemingly on his side. If he could figure out what this image was, he’d be several steps closer on figuring out the secret… 

Switching his mindset from the cloth, Bai Yunfei turned his attention back to the spoils of war.

Last up were the possessions of Li Fenghai.

He was someone who held the position of elder in the Soul Refining School and was also a Late-stage Soul King. What kind of treasures would he have?