Tainted will

Inside a dimly lit cave, Bai Ming had a delighted expression on his face as he stared at the Primordial spirit which seemed to be in a reverie.

Bai Ming had just wrapped up the interrogation, and after ransacking all the necessary information from the little spirit, the outcome made him feel exceptionally glad.

On the cultivation planet of Azure, the primordial spirits hold a very special status in the hearts of all the cultivators, for most of them the primordial spirits were things of legends. Generally, it was not considered bad when out of Ten billion cultivators, only a single person owned it, this just goes to show how extremely scarce these little spirits truly are.

These primordial spirits come in all kinds of sizes and forms, each harboring a unique ability of its own. Cultivators can refine these primordial spirits and then utilize the primordial spirits' unique innate skills as they see fit.

As for the primordial spirit that Bai Ming had captured, it turned out to be a spirit of healing. As its name implies this primordial spirit's innate skill is the ability to regenerate. Bai Ming was hoping for it to be a sword-type spirit but when he found out the results he was happy regardless.

'With my top-tier body cultivation technique, I already had superior recovery speed but once I refine this healing spirit, I believe my recovery speed will be at least thirty times greater than before. But that's not all, with the addition of this healing spirit, my overall fighting style will surely be affected. I already possess enormous spiritual reserves, along with outstanding physical durability, and now with the accumulation of excellent regeneration capabilities, from now on even within the whole planet of azure I can be considered a top-class spirit realm cultivator.' Bai Ming imagined as the grin on his face widened even more.

But the smile on Bai Ming's face soon vanished and was replaced with indifference as the thought of still not being the strongest emerged in his heart.

Bai Ming quickly sat cross-legged and slowly closed his eyes while taking a few calming breaths.

In the next moment, the vision of his spiritual essence in his Dantian appeared in his mind. The Dantian may be positioned inside his body but it was mysteriously unusual, limitlessly big, and yet infinitely small.

In his dantian were seven magnificent seas of spiritual essence. The seawater was light blue in color, the surface of the sea clear and calm as a mirror.

Every drop of light blue seawater was Bai Ming's spiritual essence. Every drop of spiritual essence was precious to cultivators because it was their source of power. Cultivators usually rely on their divine sense to refine magical treasures, but they needed to rely on spiritual essence to refine and use primordial spirits.

As he retreated his mind from the spiritual sea, Bai Ming opened his eyes and retrieved the healing spirit from the formation. The primordial spirit suddenly broke out of its reverie and began causing a disturbance, without a second thought Bai Ming knocked it out using his treasure fingers.

After getting knocked out cold, the little spirit quietly lay in his palm peacefully, looking particularly endearing.

With a simple thought, the seven mighty spiritual seas in his Dantian tumbled and a jet of spiritual essence broke from the sea surface and transferred out of his body, finally rushing into the little primordial spirit. The little spirit abruptly opened her eyes and her entire body radiated fiercely in an eerie green light, crazily trembling in Bai Ming's palm, resisting the influx of spiritual essence.

Seeing this Bai Ming let out a cold laugh and immediately held it in place. Of course, he made sure not to put too much force behind it. Otherwise, he might simply end up crushing it to death.

In truth, Primordial spirits are the condensed essence of the world, carrying the mysteries of the thousand and one worldly laws, they are true bearers of the laws of Heaven and earth. They are children born of heaven just like us humans, living creatures that live freely under the sky, each born with a will of their own.

However, right now with Bai Ming trying to refine it, it would imply overwriting its will. Feeling the danger looming, the little spirit naturally resisted.

The process of refining primordial spirits is an arduous one.

As the light blue spiritual essence poured into her little body, ancient notations soon began appearing on the soles of her little feet. Very slowly these ancient notations began to spread to her toes.

In less than fifteen minutes, Bai Ming's face had become pale. A huge volume of spiritual essence continuously poured into the Primordial spirit, making him feel a weakness that rapidly attacked his body.

1%, 2%, 3%… 8%, 9%, 10%...60%

Ten minutes later, Bai Ming's spiritual sea had used away 60% of its spiritual essence. Yet on the little spirit's body, the ancient notations had only covered her ankles.

The resistance of the little primordial spirit was immensely strong. Fortunately, Bai Ming had anticipated this earlier and did not feel surprised. He persisted and poured more essence into her tiny body.

1%, 2%, 3%…

After another twenty minutes, the spiritual sea in Bai Ming's body was only left with 12%. The ancient inscriptions of light blue essence on the primordial spirit had barely expanded any, the resistance only kept on increasing as the ancient texts started moving upwards.

"Refining is hard," Bai Ming sighed as he looked at the little girl. He broke the influx of spiritual essence, stopping the refining process.

Up until now, he had been refining for half an hour, the spiritual sea in his dantiant was consumed by a large margin with only 12% of spiritual essence left. And the primordial spirit was only refined by 1/12 of it.

To make matters worse the Primordial spirit was still emitting its eerie green glow. Even though Bai Ming had stopped refining, the Primordial spirit did not stop resisting; it was still driving out Bai Ming's spiritual essence.

Bai Ming could clearly perceive that the spiritual essence that he poured into the spirit was being pushed out, bit by bit by the little girl out of her body. On the surface, the ancient notations on her ankles were slowly shrinking.

Based on this speed of reduction, in about forty to fifty minutes she would be able to completely expel all of Bai Ming's spiritual essence. At that time when he needed to refine the spirit it would make no difference from starting over again.

'From this point Refining spirits is just like a fight between two armies, a battle of attrition. Even though I refined 1/12 of the primordial spirit, I wasted three-quarters of my spiritual essence. It seems I'll have to quickly replenish my spirit sea while continuously engaging in the refinement process, to achieve complete victory. This tests both my skill in maneuvering spiritual essence and the patience of enduring a prolonged battle.'

Bai Ming took out a qi restoring pill from his bag of holding before swallowing it, then immersed himself in absorbing all of its spiritual and medicinal contents.

After about half an hour the spirit sea had been replenished back to its original volume, this frightening speed of recovery was only possible due to his extremity-grade spirit root that could absorb spiritual essence twenty-five times faster than cultivators with low-grade spirit roots.

Thus from here, one can see the significance of the grade of one's cultivation talent. The higher the talent the faster the natural recovery and absorption speed of spiritual essence will be.

But even in Bai Ming's case to refine a spirit and solidify his results, he would have to use external aids because the natural recovery rate of essence cannot defeat the rate of the primordial spirit expelling it out.

The refining process continued for days, Bai Ming had to constantly absorb essence from pills and inject it back into the spirit, it was not just physically tiring but having to continually endure such immense pressure also put great mental pressure on Bai Ming.

But Bai Ming was relentless in his efforts, he continued to keep going, unwilling to yield.

He had done a few experiments in the past few days, like refining the spirit under the influence of the illusion formation, or while also slowly chipping away at the spirit's soul while using soul arts. But Bai Ming couldn't destroy its soul as the refining process at this time required the spirit to be alive.

But all of these experiments were proved to be useless because resistance came from the spirit's body itself the soul had nothing to do with it, only when his spiritual essence is imprinted all over its body would the spirit refining process be completed. Otherwise, if it was only soul suppression then Bai Ming could have accomplished that long ago.

Right now, Bai Ming coldly glanced at the little spirit hovering before him, its entire body was wrapped in ancient inscriptions. The little spirit looked at Bai Ming with immense fear in its eyes as it slowly shrunk and drilled into Bai Ming's heart.

The spirit refinement finally ended in Bai Ming's favor.