In truth, Xiang Shaoyun was currently in a cultivation room normally allocated to the Dong Clan Emperors. Constructed from emperor-grade materials and protected by formations, the room was absolutely sturdy. Using the nine-colored fog, he was able to easily create a hole in the wall. It was an astonishing display of destructiveness, and even he himself was stunned for a bit.
"Was the quality of this room so bad?" Xiang Shaoyun mused as he mustered all his strength and punched a different part of the wall.
Bang!
It was a punch surpassing the strength of a fifth-stage King, yet it did nothing to the wall. It was now obvious there was no issue with the wall.
"Huu. Looks like it was really due to the nine-colored fog," muttered Xiang Shaoyun with a burning gaze in his eyes. If this new power was used in a battle, he would be able to catch his opponents by complete surprise, including those with higher cultivation levels.
Xiang Shaoyun was about to try something else with the nine-colored fog when he found that he had completely exhausted it. His astral cosmos sea was not producing it anymore either. It seemed to be a limited resource.
"I never did have much of this energy. After Money devoured a large portion of it and my test attack, it is understandable that I have none left. Looks like I need to think of a way to form more of it. Only then will I be able to start using it in battle," Xiang Shaoyun concluded.
He sank into deep thought, trying to think of a way to form more of the nine-colored fog. The fog had originated from the nine astral energies that had converged on him during his breakthrough when he had ignited his fate stars. Since it was still not the time for him to break through into the next stage, gathering more of the fog with the same method was out of the question.
Xiang Shaoyun came up with a different idea: "Since I don't have any means of gathering external astral energies, I should try it with my internal astral energies instead."
He then circulated his cultivation method and fully activated his nine stars, drawing strands of astral energy from the stars into his astral cosmos sea. Unfortunately, no new nine-colored fog formed. He felt somewhat discouraged at the possibility that he would only be able to form more of the fog through convergence of external astral energies during his next breakthrough.
"I'll try three more times. If I still fail, I'll forget about it," Xiang Shaoyun muttered.
He tried two more times and failed both attempts. During the final third attempt, he did not draw all the energies he had into the astral cosmos sea. Rather, he filtered out the unique energies he had received from the lightning bone, Yun Flame, and white tiger and only used the ordinary lightning, flame and gold astral energies contained within his first three stars, which were similar in level to his other six stars.
During Xiang Shaoyun's breakthrough into the King Realm, he had absorbed nine different energies into his nine stars. Since then, the wood, water, earth, light, dark, and wind energies had respectively gathered in his six other stars. However, they were much weaker in comparison to his first three stars' unique energies.
Xiang Shaoyun now possessed astral energy of nine different elements within him. Not using any of the special elemental astral energies in his first three stars, he channeled nine ordinary elemental astral energies into the astral cosmos sea, and this time, something changed.
The different energies started gathering together, forming a thin layer of nine-colored fog. There was only a tiny bit of it, even less than the amount Xiang Shaoyun had used for his finger beam attack, but it was undeniably there.
"Success!" Xiang Shaoyun cried out in excitement.
After repeated failure, he had finally found a way to form more of the nine-colored fog. He repeated what he did and drew more energy from the nine stars into the astral cosmos sea. Sure enough, more nine-colored fog appeared and combined with the fog he had generated earlier.
Xiang Shaoyun grew even more excited and started channeling more energy into the astral cosmos sea. After only a few more times, he found that six of his stars had been completely drained of energy.
He had only formed enough nine-colored fog to replenish what he had used earlier. That much fog was only enough for one finger beam attack. Hanging around to the side was the horned lightning snake, greatly longing to devour more of the nine-colored fog. In fact, he would have done so already if Xiang Shaoyun hadn't prevented him from doing so.
"This is far from enough. Looks like I need to increase the speed I absorb the energies of the other elements if I want to form more nine-colored fog," Xiang Shaoyun decided.
Although six of his stars had been emptied, he wasn't exactly exhausted because the special elemental energies in his first three stars were still supporting him. Since he had already learned a lot about the nine-colored fog, he shifted his focus to the Nether Soul Domain.
He found that the ghostrune patriarch had transformed into a ghostrune emperor. Apart from that, a bunch of new ghostrune kings had appeared as well. He also found that more than half of the ghostrunes had gone missing, which confused him greatly.
After all, each ghostrune in his Nether Soul Domain had been living comfortably. How would they die? Even if they had died, where were the corpses? After some observation, Xiang Shaoyun finally noticed something.
He found that the strong ghostrunes were actually consuming the weaker ghostrunes to strengthen themselves. Even weirder was the fact that the weaker ghostrunes did not even resist and allowed the stronger ghostrunes to gobble them up. Xiang Shaoyun could not understand what was going on.
"Gui Qi, come out," Xiang Shaoyun summoned the ghostrune patriarch.
Gui Qi flew out and greeted respectfully, "Gui Qi greets the master."
He was speaking the ghostrune language. Even if someone was eavesdropping, they would not understand what was being said.
"Is consuming your own the way your race grows?" Xiang Shaoyun asked directly.
Gui Qi replied, "No. Most of us have only advanced because of you, master. Consuming our companions has only been for the sake of strengthening the power of our bloodline. We need to grow as quickly as possible to repay the favor you have shown us, master."
"My favor? Tell me more," Xiang Shaoyun said.
"Master, the place you are letting us live is filled with pure nether soul energy, which is the energy our race thirsts for. It is capable of helping us grow, yet our bloodline is not strong enough to support our growth. That is why we have to consume our companions to strengthen our own bloodline. It is the fastest way our race can upgrade our bloodline. In any case, all sacrifices have been on a voluntary basis," said Gui Qi.
"That...works?" Xiang Shaoyun was dumbstruck. He had never expected that the ghostrunes would actually strengthen their bloodline with such a method. The combination of their strengthened bloodline and the nether soul energy was letting them grow even faster.