Spirit Refinement Super Genius

"Hey! Hey! What the hell happened here?!"

"Ugh…" Deon awoke with a splitting headache. He was unsure if this was caused by the spirit's activation, by the world law pressuring him, or by Terros screaming in his face the moment he woke up.

"Woah, you're alive?" Terros jumped back in shock, staring at Deon like he had just seen a ghost.

"Yes, I'm alive, why would you assume that I had died without even checking my vitals?" Deon asked speechlessly.

"Ahem, well, you're covered in blood, and…what the hell happened in here?!"

Deon sat up and slowly looked around, smiling wryly and shaking his head. The surrounding area was a mess and countless precious resources were obliterated by the shockwave that spread outwards upon the forbidden spirit's creation

After seeing that he was struggling to stand, Terros used various methods to heal Deon, but in the end, the only thing that could help was sleep.

One day later, after Deon had fully recovered, he was forced to explain this situation. After all, these things were all supplied by Terros for their business venture, and the value really was a bit much.

"It was the backlash from refining a spirit."

"Since when do refinements have such a massive backlash, did you try to refine a 9-Star spirit or something?"

"No, of course not." Deon shook his head. "But the benefits this time far outweigh this little cost…my refinement ability has improved enough that I should be able to compensate this damage soon enough."

Seeing Terros furrow his brows in doubt, Deon added:

"I'll refine the 2-Star origin fountain spirit before the sun goes down."

"Three hours? You sure think a lot of yourself kid! Fine then, if you can seriously refine the 2-Star origin fountain spirit within three hours, I'll personally take on this loss myself! If not, I'll work you to the bone later on to pay me back? Haha, how does that sound?" Terros smirked, expecting Deon to back down after calling out his bluff.

However, Deon honestly wasn't bluffing…a 2-Star gold class spirit honestly didn't feel like such a monumental undertaking right now. It was difficult to explain how he knew that his refinement ability had improved, but when he pictured the coming refinement, it felt…simplistic.

"Sure, come back in three hours then." Deon nodded, leaving the middle aged man feeling dubious. He squinted, trying to see through Deon's smiling expression, but in the end, he just shrugged and agreed to his proposal.

If Deon really successfully refine a 2-Star gold class spirit within three hours, then he wasn't lying, they could easily recover from the loss sustained due to the 'refinement backlash'. If he failed, then Deon would pay everything back, it was a win win.

"2-Star origin fountain spirit, requires peak dual refinement ability, making it extremely difficult, even for a 2-Star shaman…haha, what dual refinement though? My refinement ability actually jumped directly to quadruple refinement!"

After using the forbidden sager refinement spirit, Deon's multiple refinement ability improved once again! It seemed that the first improvement came about during the refinement of the spirit, only the second improvement was caused by the spirit's effect itself.

Deon was ecstatic as he began refining. Everything felt so much more simple! Not only that, his refinement ability, his dual, triple and quadruple refinement, were all at this same high standard!

Of course, just being able to refine multiple spirits side by side wasn't the only measure of a spirit refiner's ability. If you were a quadruple refiner but your base ability was trash, then what did it even count for?

Deon's ability was not trash. He was already capable before, but now…

Bang!

He failed the first attempt at the refinement, but this was to be expected. He'd never attempted a gold class 2-Star refinement before, it was a new type of process that he was unaccustomed to. Besides, he started with an ordinary cauldron since he wanted to truly gauge his abilities without the inheritance cauldron's assistance.

"Hmm…"

Deon made adjustments and this time used Blood God's cauldron.

Half an hour later…

"Success!" His eyes shone brightly, stunned by his own ability. He finally understood just how shocking the effect of the forbidden sage refinement spirit was…

"Whilst the improvement isn't that obvious at first, as I begin to refine, my comprehensions are being put into practise and realised. That's just the initial boost though, it's not even close to the main part…my talent, my ability to learn from my mistakes and rapidly improve, has reached a heaven defying level! My talent in spirit refinement was already shocking to begin with, but now that it is supplemented by this ridiculous spirit, I've reached the level of a cheater!"

Deon felt pity for all the other spirit refiners in this world who would take a thousand times longer than him to make these adjustments and improve based on their mistakes.

Since there was still an hour left, Deon decided to experiment by refining the platinum class body refining spirits. Even though the refinement of platinum class spirits was no easier than that of ordinary class 2-Star spirits, the origin energy consumption was an order of magnitude lower, so refining all five spirits in quick succession was nothing much.

Deon was dumbfounded when he actually succeeded with all five. Previously, his success rate was 20%, but now, it was 100%?!

"This success rate…I need to refine them again to confirm this!"

After refining them each one more time, he realised that it was not quite as extreme as he thought. He was starting to get scared by his own talent, but his success rate was only 90%, not 100%.

"Only 90%…haha, spirit refiners across the lands would kill me if they heard me say that as if it wasn't already a ridiculous achievement." Deon chuckled.

At this point, Terros returned to Deon's palace hall.

"So, where's this 2-Star spirit then? Hahaha- Eh?" Terros walked in and immediately started laughing as he pictured Deon's depressed expression, but he froze in place when Deon casually pulled out the spirit and showed it to him.

"You…succeeded?" Terros barely managed to say.

"Mm. Just lucky I guess, haha."

"Lucky? Oh…"

'Ah, I think I broke the king.' Deon felt amused as Terros stared at the 2-Star spirit, unable to accept what he was seeing.

"Are you going to make more?"

"Of course, it's a good spirit. It's not effective for me to use it right now, but it will be soon enough. I'll keep one for myself and make a couple more to sell at the city. How many do you think we need?"

The origin fountain spirit improved a shaman's origin energy capacity and recovery rate by 25%. For an initial stage shaman, it had no benefit, as the spirit would drain more energy than it provided. At the early stage, the effect was neutral, whilst there was a net gain at the mid, late and peak stages.

"I can probably get away with selling 4, if I sell to two to two different trustworthy parties. I'd also like one for myself, if you could do that…"

"So six?" Deon nodded. "No problem, come back in three days and I'll have them done. Ah, I might need some more 2-Star drop spirits, for my origin energy…"

"No problem." Terros immediately agreed. He didn't understand how Deon's talent in spirit refinement had reached such an absurd level, but regardless…profit was profit.

Deon did as promised, producing six 2-Star origin fountain spirits in three days. As his output improved, he was given even more resources to work with. He continued to produce new spirits, sometimes showing them to Terros to see if they could be sold, but mostly, he was now working on a different pursuit.

Consciousness tempering spirits!

But where to start…

Should he begin with the brain worm spirit, the spirit that took three days of intense effort to show its fruition? Or perhaps the clarity koi spirit, a 1-Star platinum class spirit that provided a passive improvement to his mental concentration when bound? Unlike the bed bug spirit, this spirit focussed solely on concentration and thus was vastly superior in this one aspect.

"No, the best choice is actually this seemingly weak and cheap brain flash spirit." Deon's eyes lit up. Ever since he used the forbidden spirit, his understanding of spirit refinement had reached a whole new level, and this included his understanding of the spirits that would be the most helpful towards improving his refinement skill.

The three key aspects to a spirit refiner's ability were as follows; their refining skill, their origin energy manipulation, and their mental processing.

Any higher ranked shaman gained superior spirit refinement abilities thanks to their superior fine control over their origin energy, as well as the increased power and density of said origin energy.

Any spirit refiner would inevitably improve their skill by practising time and time again.

But mental processing was the most neglected factor, yet it was also a factor no less important than origin energy manipulation and skill level!

"The brain flash spirit is the weakest of the consciousness tempering spirits. It's a 1-Star silver class expendable spirit that provides an instantaneous effect when activated, improving the brain's efficiency by a tiny amount."

At first glance, it would seem that the 1-Star gold class brain light spirit was superior. Its refinement wasn't much more difficult, but the effect was 50 times greater!

However, if Deon really used the brain light spirit right away, a single use would knock him out cold for at least three days, then he would be incapacitated for another week. Only after three or four uses would it become tolerable enough to use this spirit without falling unconscious.

Instead, if he refined and used the more mild brain flash spirits over and over again until they become ineffective, his mind would be improved to a level where he would be able to tolerate the brain light spirit losing consciousness. This way, he could further optimise his time, improving his mental faculties to a supreme level before setting out to Flat Mount City!

Deon's plan was to continue refining spirits once he reached the city. The city could supply him with countless resources that he could not find in the kingdom, but it would be too difficult to transport all of these resources back to the kingdom.

And so Deon delved into consciousness training right away, planning to improve his abilities as much as possible in this short period of time.

The mind was extremely complex. What was the consciousness exactly? For a mortal, their consciousness existed as the mortal consciousness. This was an internal realm within the mortal soul, which was supported by the physical brain.

For shamans, the mortal consciousness evolved into the soul space when the mortal soul transformed into the origin soul. A shaman's consciousness was not an empty space, but instead was connected more thoroughly to their soul and was surrounded by thick walls, filled with origin energy and occupied by spirits. It was for this reason that shamans could easily manipulate the spirits within their soul space, even when they had only just bound the spirit for the first time.

The consciousness was the soul space itself. However, it was still supported directly by the physical brain. It was for this reason that no ordinary shaman could survive if their brain was destroyed, as that would normally cause their soul space to collapse.

If Deon wanted to improve his mind, the first stage was to improve the physical brain. After that, it was necessary to work on the soul space, but also the connection between the soul space and the brain.

"Improving the brain is difficult and painful, but still a level easier compared to tempering the soul space itself. As for enhancing the ethereal connection between them, that's extremely difficult. Anyway, this will take some time, I had better begin."