Rebirth: Supreme Soul Master

The wisp of smoke was silver, indicating the monster's rank. William didn't rush to absorb it; instead, he waited until his blood completely covered the monster's body before making his move.

He simply thought of absorbing the little sprite, and the sprite moved. As if drawn by a hidden force, the smoke moved within William's body.

Then William's vision went blank, and he fell into a daze.

The wisp of silver smoke began to slowly melt, merging with his soul. William remained in this state for longer than he had anticipated.

He estimated it would take about half a day, at most a day. But the actual time taken was much longer. For four consecutive days, William stood in the same spot, his spirit continuously absorbing the monster's soul.

He had remained there for too long, and his already weak body became stiff. The moment he moved, his body made a cracking sound, and he opened his eyes.

A silver light flashed past and then disappeared. William looked around and noticed a thin layer of dust on his body, which puzzled him.

"Have I been here all day or what?" He had no idea how much time he had spent. He was focused only on the fusion process, but judging from the bright world outside, it was already daytime.

“Let’s see what has changed,” he said, without even trying to eat or drink anything as he completed the merging. He took out a spirit crystal and a candle and began to assess his own strength.

The moment he channeled his soul power into the crystal, the entire crystal shone with a dazzling silver light. "Breaking through the Barrier Stage, entering the Barrier Stage... Excellent!"

He had anticipated that the fox's martial spirit was merely bringing its martial spirit from the Mud Realm to the Barrier Realm. But now, that silver light was a sign of the Barrier Realm.

Spirits in the mud phase have no discernible shape. However, upon reaching the barrier stage, the shape of the monster to which the spirit belongs will vaguely appear on the spirit.

Like Berry, her soul power also manifests as a phoenix and a dragon. Therefore, she is currently in the barrier phase.

Upon reaching the foundational stage of a martial soul, tiny circular movements begin to appear around it, essentially forming the pillars and base of the martial soul. Even before his divine soul was fully formed, he noticed the existence of these pillars within it.

Once the light stabilized, William began examining the crystal. Upon seeing this, his jaw dropped; he didn't know whether to laugh or not.

"This... I never thought I'd even taken that bastard's soul!"

Inside the crystal, a small fox with two tails appeared. The fox was small in size and its entire body was covered with light silver fur.

William knew it wasn't like the fox he had killed and absorbed its soul. If it were, then the monster only had one tail, not two! Not to mention the difference in the shape and color of its fur.

The monster he killed had feathers, not fur. No matter how William saw it, it was a scaled-down version of his battle with the nine-tailed fox before he died and came here.

“It has a spine extending from its back, so could it be considered a hybrid of two foxes or something?” William muttered to himself as he carefully observed the fox spirit on his body.

But apart from that backbone, everything else about him was similar to that of his nemesis.

"Two tails... Hmm... I never expected that damned fox would acquire tails by enhancing its spiritual quality." This was new knowledge he had that his enemy didn't know.

Acquiring two tails signifies reaching the Soul Formation stage, which is considered the second stage of the Martial Soul evolution path. This idea aligns well with the fox's nine tails during William's battle with it. That fox is now at the Nine Spirits Realm and is attempting to advance to the legendary Tenth Realm, becoming a god.

William thought about this and couldn't help but feel a little strange. It was a very simple conclusion, but no one had been able to connect the dots before.

"So, I've obtained your devouring ability, plus your martial soul, heh! I can't imagine what your expression would be if you heard about this!"

William was quite pleased with this. He knew this outcome was due to his accidental absorption of the soul of a monster connected to that damned fox. Otherwise, his fox spirit wouldn't have grown to such a level.

He now discovered that, due to this coincidence, he had advanced two levels directly. This made him smile wickedly.

Then he started counting the soul power points inside the crystal. "Eighty points? Almost thirty in one day! Wow!"

He didn't know he had been here for four days. But even if he did, achieving such a level of improvement in four days was already quite an accomplishment.

His improvement was due to a slight modification to the invigorating method he had undergone. His devouring ability did indeed absorb the soul power of the fox's core, increasing his score by thirty points.

Normally, he gains very few points of soul power, at most ten. But others don't have his incredible devouring ability, which allows him to gain more soul power.

But the good news ended there. When he searched for the core of the monster's corpse, he was disappointed to find nothing.

"Could it be that I devoured it while absorbing its soul? Is that why my soul power increased?" He frowned, but the facts were right in front of him.