An anomaly in his soul realm

When he reached the testing site, Nie Zexi was tapping her feet with impatience, "What took you so long?"

"Ah youngsters, always in a hurry," said Nie Li groaning like an old man.

"Oh Grandpa, look" Nie Zexi pointed her scroll toward the target and activated it. There was a 'woosh' sound and the target and a large area around it froze. Seeing that the scroll she made worked as intended she began jumping in joy whooping.

Nie Li turned around. After some more celebrating Nie Zexi came over to him and thanked him "Nie Li thank you for this chance. I know you're doing this for your own benefit as well, but still, it's a great chance for me. Before you came, I thought that I would be creating only Bronze rank scrolls for my entire life, but now I have hope to reach unimaginable heights. So thank you again"

Nie Li got embarrassed. He didn't expect such a reaction. "Um, you're welcome. So…," he didn't know what to say.

"Okay," she laughed, "Let's make another one," she said.

"No, It's already late. You're going to sleep now." Seeing that she was ready to protest he continued, "The cube may not have enough energy left anyway. Tomorrow I will skip classes and charge it with a silver rank demon spirit. That would be enough for 25-30 Silver rank scrolls. You can play as much as you want then."

"Okay, but you don't have to skip classes. I can wait until evening" Nie Zexi didn't want his studies to suffer because of her.

"Eh, I barely learn anything from them. So don't worry."

"Ah, your mysterious master. If I had a mysterious master as well" wistfully stated Nie Zexi

"What am I, chopped liver?" Nie Li responded. "Oh by the way, how much does it cost to rent a private Inscription room?"

"Thousand spirit coins a month. Do you think I need one?" she asked Nie Li.

"Yes. It's not much money for the benefits it provides" he held out a thousand spirit coin card.

"Okay you can take it from my share of first profits" Nie Zexi took the money.

"Goodnight," they said their farewells, and Nie Li returned to his room.

--------------------

He had some things to do before going to bed. He activated the Starlight Crafting Plate and began creating dimensional rocks and interspatial rings. He specifically bought three demon spirits for it. After an hour of work, he made 6 interspatial rings and he was left with almost 100 grams of dimensional rock, and a small amount of dimensional crystal.

Unfortunately, he couldn't create many rings for sale, because that could attract some unwanted attention. Glory City currently couldn't produce interspatial rings. All of the rings were left from ancient eras. One of the reasons was that Glory City didn't have any dimensional rock mines in its territory. But the main reason was that current masters simply could not create them. That knowledge also was lost during the Age of Darkness. Nowadays inscription masters could only erase the mark of the previous owner so that the new owner could use it.

Now he will work on another idea, a multi-use Soul Crystal. It was annoying to buy a new soul crystal every time he needs to check someone's innate talent. He put one new and one used soul crystal into the processing chamber of the Starlight Crafting Plate. He wanted to find a way to clear the residual energy left in the crystal after its first use.

But inspecting the two crystals Nie Li noticed that the used crystal not only hosted residual energy but also had physical changes as well. It looks like inserting a soul force into a soul crystal changes its structure. To examine the process he sent his soul force into the unused crystal and watched the changes happening. It reminded him of the photosensitive materials or photocells from Robert's world.

This sensitivity could be used to create some kind of sensors in the future. But his idea of creating multi-use soul crystals has failed. But not all was lost. He could restore used soul crystals into their original form via the Starlight Crafting Plate. It didn't take much time either. He restored all four used soul crystals he had. Well, it's better than nothing. He deactivated the plate. It was already late so he retired for the night.

-------------------

The next morning during their joint breakfast, he told his friends that he won't be attending classes at least for the next few days. He also invited them to the study group meeting after classes and told them there will be others as well. When Lu Piao learned that they will be studying he tried to get out of it, but a collective pressure made him accept his fate.

Du Ze also gave him the contract for the warehouse he rented. He didn't know why Nie Li needed a warehouse but until now his every decision was very beneficial for them so he expected this one would be too.

After breakfast, Nie Li returned to his room to cultivate. He has to find that mysterious thing in his soul realm. In the novel, his counterpart's cultivation was largely affected by it. He doesn't know what it is, but its ability to absorb any type of energy to advance and in turn accelerate his cultivation would be very useful. But he had to find it first.

He sat down to cultivate. After two hours of diligently cultivating concentrated on his soul realm, he felt the anomaly. His soul form also was evolving turning into a spherical shape. He knows that it will turn into a vine in the future sprouting leaves during its advancement. Evolving soul forms weren't an impossibility, but soul for simply appearing out of nowhere was new even for him.

This really must be related to the Temporal Demon Spirit Book. The fact that it can interact with the book's remnant pages confirms it. And its ability to absorb energy safely allows him to cultivate at an unimaginable rate. In the novel during the demon attack on the city, his counterpart was able to absorb the spirits of many dead demon beasts. He can replicate the process in a controlled manner.

It will be a hybrid of Demon Spirit Devouring Technique and his Charger cube. Instead of devouring the demon spirits, damaging his cultivation, he would dissolve them into energy and then absorb it. Even that would have been dangerous for anyone. But the peculiarity of his soul realm makes it safe for him.

He must design an array that dissolves the demon spirits and contains the energy inside the designated zone not allowing it to dissipate too fast. He cannot predict the efficiency of the method, so he must experiment first. He needs some more resources for that.

He went to the market and sold his rings for 250 thousand spirit coins. This should be enough for some time. Then he bought Silver rank demon spirit to power the Charger Cube for 30 thousand and a dozen Bronze rank demon spirits for his experiments for another 35 thousand. After some more small purchases, he decided to visit Nie Wen. All this selling and buying was getting on his nerves. He could have asked Du Ze or Lu Piao to deal with it for a part of profits. But he was hoping that lady luck would smile on him once more and he would stumble upon some treasure in the market. So far with the exception of a few interesting things he encountered only junk.