What Chen Ming envisioned was using a secret technique to ignite the origin of his Martial Soul, temporarily elevating its power while greatly expanding the extent of his dragonification.
This way, at critical moments, it could be used both against enemies and to temporarily enhance his own attributes.
The medicinal power of the Three Treasures Dragon Transformation Pill would accumulate within the Martial Soul itself, replacing the Martial Soul's origin as fuel.
Originally, igniting this technique would require consuming ten portions of origin power, but with the Three Treasures Dragon Transformation Pill, nine portions could be offset by the pill's medicinal effects.
As much as possible, Chen Ming wanted to transform what was originally a desperate life-risking method that damaged one's origin into a technique that could be used frequently.
And if the Martial Soul's origin was damaged, the medicinal power of the Three Treasures Dragon Transformation Pill could also replenish that origin, preventing any permanent harm.
It was a pill specifically customized by Chen Ming for the origins of dragon-type Martial Souls.
At first glance, it did not seem particularly powerful.
But when a technique had no side effects and could even replenish one's origin, then the number of possible applications increased dramatically.
As for his future cultivation, Chen Ming naturally would not foolishly rely solely on bitter training to improve himself.
Taking pills was inevitable.
However, even the true version of the Greater Spirit Ascension Pill, whose ingredients had not been weakened and which could be consumed repeatedly, no longer provided significant improvement for him at this stage.
Because of this, Chen Ming created a new medicine.
Using dragon blood, tiger bone, and whale rubber as the primary ingredients, supplemented with more than thirty kinds of precious materials such as ginseng, astragalus, and deer antler, along with several minerals, he produced an extremely expensive medicinal pill.
Theoretically, each pill contained enough Spirit Power to equal the amount required for a Level 40 Spirit Ancestor to advance from Level 40 to Level 41.
Moreover, after a period of time, one could continue taking it again.
But even excluding the labor costs of Chen Ming and Qian Daoliu, the raw material cost alone for a single pill exceeded twenty thousand gold soul coins.
Some ingredients were also difficult to obtain.
This was true pay-to-win cultivation.
If he ever sold it to others...
Chen Ming felt that anything less than eight hundred thousand gold soul coins per pill would practically mean he had worked for nothing.
Anyone without a mine at home simply could not afford such pills.
Even the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Clan, despite their wealth, would feel pain paying for one.
It was only because Chen Ming was currently harvesting the entire Spirit Master world like cutting leeks that he could afford to be this extravagant.
As for his future cultivation path, Chen Ming already had a rough plan.
At every realm, he would refine pills from an even higher realm for himself to consume, using all kinds of methods to purify the impurities within his body.
Then, he would devote most of his time to accumulating knowledge, developing various abilities, and creating different secret arts.
As much as possible, he wanted to reach a state of complete and comprehensive mastery, maximizing the development of every one of his abilities.
At the fastest pace, he estimated he could break through to the Titled Douluo realm around the age of twenty.
If slower, then around twenty-five.
If he pursued only Spirit Power level, there were certainly methods for that.
But Spirit Master cultivation was the kind of path where once a step was taken, it became difficult to change later.
If one failed to establish a solid foundation and develop properly, then after reaching higher levels, both one's future path and potential would diminish greatly.
Why did Tang San in the original story replace his first, second, third, fourth, and sixth Spirit Rings? Was it really a strict requirement for reviving Xiao Wu to lose all those rings except the sixth? If it was a requirement, why could his fifth ring be skipped?
Wasn't it simply because the Sea God wanted to let Tang San reset his build, deliberately cleansing the impurities from his Martial Soul? Otherwise, what kind of person loses their Spirit Rings and can still absorb replacements afterward?
Chen Ming swallowed the Dragon Tiger Great Restoration Pill in his hand.
Overflowing life force surged from within his body, nourishing his physique and strengthening his origin.
Because the medicinal properties of the Dragon Tiger Great Restoration Pill were so fierce, and Chen Ming's cultivation as a Level 30+ Spirit Elder was not particularly high, he underwent significant physical changes.
First, his hair and nails began growing rapidly.
His skin became smooth and tender.
Afterward, his baby teeth started falling out one after another as permanent teeth regrew in their place.
To avoid damaging his image and to wait for Dugu Bo to finish his seclusion so they could return to the Heaven Dou Empire together, Chen Ming was forced to hide in Spirit Hall for a few extra days.
Taking advantage of this opportunity, Chen Ming also repeatedly pestered Fifteen Ton Douluo and Falling Devil Douluo into summoning their Coiling Dragon Staff Martial Souls for him to examine.
Unlike the two-section staff used by Emperor Taizu of Song to conquer the world, the Coiling Dragon Staff Martial Soul was a single staff. It was called a Coiling Dragon Staff because a dragon soul truly was coiled within it.
The Coiling Dragon Staff was an exceptionally powerful Martial Soul.
Among Tool Martial Souls, its status was similar to the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon among Beast Martial Souls.
Not only were its raw attributes extremely generous, but it also possessed additional technical advantages. Very few Tool Martial Souls could compare with the Coiling Dragon Staff.
Fifteen Ton Douluo and Falling Devil Douluo bore the surname Gu rather than Qiangu. The Qiangu Clan was likely a name adopted later by their descendants.
And compared to the "Unyielding Nine Styles" developed twenty thousand years later based on the Unyielding Spirit Soul, the staff techniques of the two Douluos, though still top-tier, were clearly inferior by quite a bit.
What interested Chen Ming more was the Coiling Dragon Staff itself and the "Heavenly Awakening Sacred Golden Dragon" soul residing within it.
The Heavenly Awakening Sacred Golden Dragon was also known as the Break Evil Dragon.
Although it bore the name "dragon," it was actually the embodiment of the righteous energy of heaven and earth, merely shaped like a dragon.
It feared neither heaven nor earth.
Not even the Dragon God could suppress the Break Evil Dragon.
Through questioning them, Chen Ming also learned that not every member of the Qiangu Clan could house the soul of the Heavenly Awakening Sacred Golden Dragon within their Coiling Dragon Staff.
This depended on the individual's talent and strength of will.
Some possessed only the appearance of the Coiling Dragon Staff. Though they had the Martial Soul, no dragon soul coiled within it.
It was merely a somewhat sturdy stick.
Its quality was only around the level of an ordinary mid-to-high-tier Martial Soul.
According to the legends revealed by the two Titled Douluos, more than ten thousand years ago, their clan's Martial Soul had merely been an ordinary long staff, and their ancestor had been one of the many Spirit Masters who followed behind the Angel God.
During a massive Spirit Beast tide, the Angel God—who had not yet ascended to godhood at the time—left camp in order to rescue humans elsewhere.
Spirit Beasts previously defeated by the Angel God seized the opportunity to launch a retaliatory ambush, nearly slaughtering most of the Angel God's followers.
The ancestor of the Gu Clan fought at the front lines with his long staff in hand, standing unyielding as he shouted that he would never retreat.
His courage in risking his life for humanity resonated with the Heavenly Awakening Sacred Golden Dragon, which was formed from the righteous energy of heaven and earth.
The Heavenly Awakening Sacred Golden Dragon willingly sacrificed itself to the Gu Clan ancestor.
Its dragon soul remained eternally within the staff and was passed down through generations.
That was how humanity came to possess a Martial Soul like the Coiling Dragon Staff.
The Heavenly Awakening Sacred Golden Dragon soul inside every Coiling Dragon Staff was a product formed from the righteous energy of heaven and earth combined with fragments of the dragon soul from the original Heavenly Awakening Sacred Golden Dragon that sacrificed itself to the Gu ancestor.
It was the original Heavenly Awakening Sacred Golden Dragon—
And yet, it was also not the original Heavenly Awakening Sacred Golden Dragon.
Chen Ming was not certain whether this legend was true or false.
But after deducing the difficulty of forcibly binding the Heavenly Awakening Sacred Golden Dragon's soul within a Martial Soul and passing it down generation after generation, he felt that the story was most likely true.