During the following months, Nie Tian channeled star power and practiced cultivation on the roof of the stone pavilion the Divine Seal Sect had assigned to him.

By now, he was at the peak of the Worldly realm. His spiritual core and vortexes of wood power, flame power, and star power had all been refined to their limits.

The way he saw it, the reason why he still hadn’t broken through into the Profound realm was because his soul still lacked refinement.

Countless stars lit up the sky in the Realm of Maelstrom, which looked like a gigantic well.

There was a star core at the heart of every star. The starlight a star emanated carried faint power from its star core, which was that star’s soul power.

Nie Tian was channeling such soul power from the depths of the starry river and using it to strengthen his star souls.

However, it was very time-consuming to channel soul power from star cores and guide it into his star souls.

Nie Tian practiced wholeheartedly for several months, but the amount of soul power he gained from the starry river over the Realm of Maelstrom wasn’t even as much as the amount of soul power in a couple of soul crystals.

He pondered the matter for a long time, and eventually decided to cultivate with the precious soul crystals instead for higher efficiency.

Then, he left the roof of the stone pavilion and entered a secret room, where he took out soul crystals from within his ring of holding and started channeling soul power from them.

One soul crystal after another ran dry.

With the rapid soul crystal consumption, the nine star souls that floated over his sea of awareness gradually grew stronger.

Soon, they expanded to three times their original size.

Meanwhile, they shone dazzlingly over his sea of awareness, soothing and calming his mind in an unfathomable way.

It didn’t take very long before the refinement of his nine star souls reached its limit, since the star souls stopped expanding as they were infused with more soul power.

Therefore, Nie Tian realized that only after he broke through into the Profound realm would his sea of awareness undergo new changes, causing his star souls to further expand.

With this thought in mind, he started to think about things from another perspective.

Something suddenly occurred to him as he recalled the records regarding star souls. “By transferring one’s soul imprints, one can turn his star souls into sub-souls!”

Without hesitation, he took out another two soul crystals, one in each hand, and started to manipulate his true soul meticulously.

In his sea of awareness, his true soul started to rise, and slowly approached one of the expanded, glowing star souls.

Nie Tian went through every detail of the soul imprint transferring method over and over in his mind. Only after he was certain that he had fully grasped it did he fly his true soul into that star soul.

SHEW! SHEW! SHEW!

The soul crystals in his palms were rapidly drained of their pure soul power.

The newly-acquired soul power poured madly into that star soul.

The moment his true soul entered that star soul, his lifetime understandings of flame power that had been branded in his true soul seemed to morph into streaks of glorious light that were dispersed into that star soul, where they mixed with the soul power from the soul crystals.

At the same time, a vague awareness seemed to be awakened by Nie Tian’s true soul, and emerged within the star soul.

That vague, primal awareness was none other than that star soul’s original awareness.

Star souls were only called star souls because they were the souls of stars that powerful experts from the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace had peeled and refined from the cores of certain stars.

Every star soul could be considered an individual with its own awareness.

As Nie Tian’s understanding of flame power was transferred from his true soul to that star soul, that star soul’s original awareness was naturally awakened, and a profound soul connection seemed to be established between it and Nie Tian.

At this moment, Nie Tian had the most peculiar feeling that he had developed a new soul.

The new soul was connected to his true soul in a mysterious way, and from the moment it formed, it started to analyze all sorts of flame power incantations on its own.

What was even more incredible was that after the formation of this new soul, there didn’t seem to be any enlightenment regarding flame power incantations left in his true soul.

All of them were transferred into the new soul.

Besides that, the new soul was also connected to his vortex of flame power in his spiritual sea in a completely compatible way the moment it came to form.

It was as if from now on, this new soul would be in charge of everything regarding flame power, including the casting of all kinds of flame power magics.

This was such an incredible, indescribable feeling.

CRACK! CRACK!

The two soul crystals cracked as they were drained of their power.

Nie Tian then took out fresh soul crystals from within his ring of holding, hoping to finish the transformation of this star soul as quickly as possible with their help.

One soul crystal after another cracked in his palms.

Then, fresh ones took their places.

As this happened, wisps of pure soul power poured unceasingly into that transforming star soul.

As time passed, the star soul took on a crimson luster, and the shape of Nie Tian’s true soul gradually appeared in the middle of that star soul.

Soon, the star soul became fiery red, and started to emanate a mysterious fiery light, as if it were a sun that burned in the depths of the starry river.

“Sub-soul! I managed to form a sub-soul!” Nie Tian exclaimed inwardly.

He suddenly remembered the contents regarding sub-souls that were recorded in the ancient magical symbols in the second fragmentary star mark.

According to those records, once a sub-soul formed, even if the cultivator’s true soul perished, he would be able to reform his true soul with the help of his sub-soul.

This meant that even if Nie Tian had his true soul destroyed in battle in the future, as long as his sub-soul didn’t perish, he would be able to reform his true soul.

Even if he no longer had his fleshly body, as long as his true soul survived, he would be able to find an opportunity to be reborn as Yuan Jiuchuan had.

The core concept of the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace’s incantations was channeling power from the countless stars and using it to strengthen the cultivator’s star souls.

Once the cultivator’s star souls were strong enough, they would transform into sub-souls, which had incredible uses.

At this point, after consuming a large number of soul crystals, Nie Tian had finally formed his first sub-soul, and realized how wondrous it was.

This first sub-soul could derive enlightenment of the profound truths of flame power.

Many things required his true soul’s attention. He had to use it to think about matters, observe everything around him, and make decisions in battle...

However, only when he practiced cultivation wholeheartedly would he be able to derive enlightenment from all kinds of incantations.

Yet, he couldn’t possibly spend all of his time practicing cultivation.

Furthermore, he also needed to ponder the secrets of his bloodline power, wood power, and star power. Even if he practiced cultivation, he couldn’t spend all of his time on one type of power and ignore all the others.

The sub-souls solved this problem for him.

Now that his first sub-soul had formed, he no longer needed to spend his time pondering the profound mysteries of flame power incantations.

It was as if he had developed another soul that would do nothing but derive enlightenment of flame power for him.

It would have nothing to do with pondering situations, relationships with others, or other worldly matters.

“The flame sub-soul can not only communicate with my vortex of flame power to channel flame power from it, but it can also unceasingly derive enlightenment from all kinds of flame power incantations and magics on its own.” Greatly spirited, Nie Tian took out a scroll that recorded the Flame Spirit Incantation from within his ring of holding and browsed through it.

As he did, all of the information he acquired regarding the Flame Spirit Incantation was directed to his sub-soul.

Without any delay, the sub-soul started working on tricks to cast the Flame Spirit Incantation in order to display its full might.

After that, Nie Tian browsed through a few other flame power incantation and magic scrolls.

The contents of these scrolls were soon branded in his sub-soul, and his sub-soul started contemplating the profound mysteries of different ways to wield flame power.

“This is awesome!” Nie Tian exclaimed inwardly.

Since he practiced flame power, wood power, and star power at the same time, and he had to spare some of his time to study his unique bloodline and the secret titan magics, he felt he like never had enough time and energy.

However, the appearance of the flame power sub-soul solved all of his problems regarding flame power cultivation for good.

“The Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace didn’t become one of the four most powerful human powers for no reason. No wonder disciples of the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace would go to great lengths to gain star souls! Such wondrous things indeed represent humanity’s top cultivation methods and skills!

“Now that I’ve formed my flame power sub-soul, will I be able to form wood power and star power sub-souls?”

Having reached this point in his train of thought, Nie Tian’s eyes lit up as he hastily took out more soul crystals from within his ring of holding.