Chapter 389: Night Operation (1) 

Chu Mu, under Old Li's guidance, merged the broken fighting spirited souls of the giant species with the Ghost King's soul. 

When the two souls touched each other, the Ghost King's soul began to visibly conflict with the giant species' soul. It was like the two were competing against and fighting each other.

Chu Mu knew that the level of this soul was comparable to the Ghost King. There would thus be a certain amount of difficulty for the Ghost King to use the strength of its own soul to tame the giant species' broken soul. Promptly, Chu Mu forcibly intervened with his soul and suppressed the stubborn and unique soul.

Chu Mu's soul was much stronger than both the Ghost King and the giant species'. Once he intervened, the giant species' broken soul gradually turned from an unbending and untamable being to a soldier that listened to the Ghost King's orders, as it slowly merged into the Ghost King's soul.

However, after the soul merged, the Ghost King's body entered an extremely long period of stillness. During this time, the Ghost King's soul didn't change at all, as if the merging soul hadn't had any effect.

"Old Li, what happened?" after waiting a long while, Chu Mu didn't find that the Ghost King had entered an evolution so he wore a scrutinizing expression.

"The Ghost King is still absorbing the broken soul's power. It probably needs a rather long time to do so. Let it sleep for now and once it wakes up, it should have entered the eighth phase." said Old Li.

Chu Mu nodded his head and asked whether the Ghost King felt there was something different with its soul before letting it enter a deep sleep.

Old Li indicated that the Ghost King could enter a deep sleep for a period of time so during this time he wouldn't be able to summon it; this was because the longer the Ghost King slept for, the more its strength would rise.

After the Ghost King went to sleep, Chu Mu retrieved the Barbed Armor's Heart and prepared to strengthen Zhan Ye.

Zhan Ye had been at the bottleneck of the seventh phase ninth stage for a period longer than the Ghost King. According to Chu Mu's estimates, once he used the Barbed Armor's Heart, Zhan Ye would probably be able to advance to stages.

Chu Mu was very proficient at inner crystallization spirit item injection while Zhan Ye was a soul pet that was very receptive to new energies being injected.

Quickly, the Barbed Armor Heart's energy slowly diffused in Zhan Ye's body. There were no abnormalities that appeared on its body and there wasn't even the usual pain from transforming its body. It thus was able to evolve in phase and stage extremely smoothly.

The original ink color armor was shead and the new ink armor was visibly sharper and seemed even more metallic as it gave off a cold l.u.s.tre.

Carefully examining Zhan Ye's new ink armor, Chu Mu quickly discovered that a few strange colored and deep magic armor markings were slowly appearing on Zhan Ye's ink armor. These magic armor markings were rather clear and only when the cold l.u.s.tre flickered would one be able to discover their existence.

Chu Mu remembered that amongst the Seven Diagram Saint Pets, the Lin Yin Beast also had similar markings on its armor. Back when Ting Lan's Lin Yin Beast fought the Binding Wind Spirit, Chu Mu discovered that the markings on the Lin Yin Beast would occasionally circulate a special l.u.s.tre and each time it flickered, its strength seemed to increase a lot.

"Young master, this is the Ancestor Return Imprint of the barbed armor beast species." explained Old Li. 

"What is the Ancestor Return Imprint?" asked Chu Mu.

"It refers to soul pets with an ability similar to a species ability that their ancestors had. This species ability is normally possessed by middle cla.s.s monarch soul pets like the Lin Yin Beast. Your Zhan Ye being able to comprehend it means that Zhan Ye's fighting strength is slowly nearing the middle cla.s.s monarch." said Old Li. 

Chu Mu's face revealed an excited expression as this meant that Zhan Ye's fighting strength rank had increased a bit!

"From the distinctiveness of this magic armor marking, you can determine the increased effect. From what I can see, this magic armor marking can increase Zhan Ye's fighting strength by 20 percent and its defensive strength by thirty percent. It presently has evolved to the eighth phase second stage. Without soul armor or the magic armor marking, its fighting strength should be at the middle eighth stage. With the sixth level soul claw and magic armor marking's effect, its fighting strength increases to the late eighth stage.

Zhan Ye's defensive strength is at the early eighth stage, and with the seventh rank soul armor and magic armor marking's effect, it should increase to the late eighth stage." said Old Li.

Zhan Ye was at the eighth phase second stage, and under Brave Stinging Heart's effect, its stage could unceasingly increase. Being able to reach a high stage in the eighth phase in the course of one fight was of no problem. When it reached that point of the fight, Zhan Ye's fighting strength wouldn't be inferior to Mo Xie and the White Nightmare!

"The average strength of second grade experts' soul pets should be an eighth phase monarch. Young Master rising to the second grade shouldn't be a problem at all, but, there's still a small gap before obtaining the ultimate honor. In this final year, you must not stop working hard. You'll have more of a chance if a few of your soul pets reach the ninth phase. But, this isn't very likely as stepping into the ninth phase from the eighth phase is a great difficulty and the majority of second grade experts' soul pets have monarch rank fighting strength that stay at the eighth phase ninth stage." said Old Li.

"Ting Lan seems to have two ninth phase monarch rank soul pets." said Chu Mu.

There was still half a year, and Chu Mu felt that he should get a better understanding of the second grade's circ.u.mstances. This way, he would be able to have a clearer orientation.

"She belongs to the category of powerful people that have the chance at obtaining the second grade's ultimate honor. There are about five of these people in Soul Palace and the factions with these sorts of experts are probably Soul Alliance, Nightmare Palace, Soul Pet Palace, as well as the others like Merchant Alliance, Elemental Sect, Hunting a.s.sociation, Spirit Church, Luo Region Sect and the other large kingdom sects with at most two people with ninth phase monarch soul pets in the second garde. Therefore, if young master is able to reach this level, you will be able to be among those that compete for the ultimate honor. If you haven't reached this level, it would be better to pick another reward." said Old Li. 

If the peak experts in the second grade possess ninth phase monarchs, he had to at least have one soul pet with strength that had risen to the ninth phase. Chu Mu felt that the biggest possibility of this happening was probably Mo Xie or the Night Thunder Dream Beast. He also felt that he should place more emphasis on them and strive to raise one of them to the ninth phase in the half a year he had!

After consecutively strengthening three soul pets, much of Chu Mu's soul power had been consumed. Feeling a trace of tiredness, Chu Mu closed his eyes and entered a silent cultivation state.

In the following two to three days, Chu Mu made a special trip to Soul Palace's sole training ground. He did this in order to let his soul pets exercise and let them practicing their new techniques.

During these two days, Chu Mu also entered a learning soul technique state.

Learning a seventh rank soul technique wasn't hard, and with his current soul remembrance, Chu Mu needed a few days to learn it.

The eighth rank soul technique, Sharp Eye, required a relatively long amount of time to learn. Other type soul techniques were also one of the hardest soul techniques to learn and was also related to the soul pet trainer's talent. Many soul pet trainers would even find learning a fourth rank other type technique even after reaching the spirit master level.

Chu Mu was unique in that he presently possessed an other type soul pet, and it would be much easier to control another type technique. According to his estimates, he would definitely be able to learn this soul technique within a month.

"They're about to take action!" Shang Heng appeared in the training field Chu Mu was at and spoke to him.

There were another two people next to Shang Heng who Chu Mu had never seen before; but he could see that they were probably peak young experts in Soul Palace.

"Hmm, when?" asked Chu Mu. He recalled his soul pets, as he knew that they were about to pit themselves against Shen Yicheng.

"Tonight. The news of Jiang Zhi will quickly come." said Shang Heng.

Chu Mu nodded his head and he swept his gaze of the two people before saying: "Please introduce them."

Shang Heng pointed at the skinny man on the left and introduced him: "This is our Soul Palace's youngest eighth rank soul official, Zhan Hong and is our Soul Palace's second grade expert. He is one of the members of the eighth young master's team."

The young man called Zhan Hong indifferently nodded his head at Chu Mu, but didn't say anything.

From this young man's eyes, Chu Mu could feel that this young master didn't think too highly of him.

Chu Mu only had a seventh rank t.i.tle, and his age was evidently smaller than Zhan Hong's. He had obviously been categorized into the third grade so Zhan Hong was silently baffled at why a third grade person would be commanding him.

"This is Blue Kingdom's strongest second grade expert, Zhao Cheng. He is also a seventh rank t.i.tle person at our Soul Palace." Shang Heng pointed at young man wearing a short sleeve grey jacket as he spoke.

Zhao Cheng good naturedly laughed, his face revealing a row of pure white teeth on his slightly tanned face. He looked very easy-going and honest without any aura of an expert. On this point, he was completely the opposite from Zhan Hong. 

Chu Mu didn't know what sort of place Blue Kingdom was, but being able to rise above the rest in a vast kingdom meant that his strength was definitely out of the ordinary. 

"Did you determine how many people the opposing party has?" asked Chu Mu.

"They should only have four people: Shen Yicheng, Jiang Zhi, Feng Kun, and another whom I don't know."

"I have no issues dealing with one, but don't you guys feel that it will be easier if we have more people?" coldly said Zhang Hong.

"The mission this time isn't to kill the four of them; rather, it's to disrupt their plan. More people will inconvenience our movements, and it will be easily taken advantage of by the other factions. Four people is perfect." said Chu Mu.

Shang Heng nodded his head. He hadn't convened too many people also for this reason. The moment they started fighting, in a conflict between this number of young experts, there was no problem about the existence of an advantage.

"Then let's meet at Bright Moon Bridge when the sun sets. We'll discuss what our course of action is when we meet. Let's disperse first." said Chu Mu.

Zhan Hong and Zhao Cheng nodded their heads before immediately leaving the training field!