Chapter 9:

As the evolution continued Shane saw a soft glowing jewel emerge from the light like an angel from heaven. Of course, this was his soul core. Above the delicate orb a gently glowing white halo floated unhurriedly. As the light continued to get brighter and brighter more spirit energy was drawn into Shane's mind space as yellow tendrils of light flowed into the spirit ring making it grow larger and stronger.

Happy with the growth of his spirit ring Shane shifted his attention to the soul core. He was unable to find or call the soul core within his mind space when he wanted, it only appeared during the evolution process and since it decided to appear he wanted to explore it.

Whilst observing the core which radiated mysterious energy Shane found slight blemishes around the jewel like surface. The soul core had the appearance of a white round jewel. It surface releasing a mesmerizing glow whilst showing how fragile the finger nail sized object was.

Shane tried to push his senses towards the blemishes and was surprised at what he found. The blemishes seemed to be full of sorrow and pain evil in nature. This shocked Shane as the last time he interacted with the soul core it had a gentle white colour not this current grey sheen.

Upon further analysis he found it to be linked with resentment and the blemishes were a sort of contamination, simply put it was not his own.

The only possible source for such resentment would have to be the spirit beasts he absorbed life from, as his roots became stronger, he even invaded the beasts while they were alive as that seemed to bring greater energy to himself.

From what he could sense this contamination would currently not affect him but over time it would erode his mind giving him more negative emotions and inclining him to darker thoughts. This was the most likely cause for Dark cultivators as their minds eroded over time, making them truly evil.

Shane was truly glad he found this early, it seemed not everything was better rushed and he would have to unfortunately stop his current method. He didn't need to do this immediately, he had confidence that he could use it up to 1000 Years of cultivation and after it would truly affect his thinking. Using it till 1000 Years would still lead to more resentment being absorbed from his soul however he could supress the resentment and he couldn't even feel it right now, it would at most making him more prone to anger.

However, what excited Shane through this discovery was that he seemed to have somehow absorbed the dead spirit beasts souls into himself. From this knowledge he may be able to find a way to interact with soul beats souls, and if he remembered correctly the Necromancer in Douluo 2 helped the protagonist in forming contract with spirit beats.

What if he was able to communicate with the soul beasts' souls when they were dead or alive and then gain access to his own soul. Over time as Shanes senses became stronger, he was able to get a stronger feeling for the soul core so he had hope that he could call upon it himself.

Through evolution the soul core became vulnerable which allowed him to inspect and interact with it, which lead him to find the blemishes on his soul in the first place. Maybe during evolution, he could try to gain a stronger evolution by supplementing something into his soul to cause a greater variation to his current body.

Whilst emersed in his thoughts Shane was pulled out as he felt the spirit ring call for him. Moving his gaze onto the gently glowing yellow halo which released far stronger spirit energy than his previous 10-Year-old sprit ring, Shane began to assign its new ability. Although it would be dangerous Shane had decided to continue the devouring other soul beasts till the 1000 Years evolution for mainly two reasons.

The first was he was still uncomfortable with his strength, if any soul beast discovered him through cloaking or he released his presence he was doomed to be dinner.

Secondly the thoughts of gaining and possible interacting with souls through devouring had peeked Shane's interest. Maybe he could create similar abilities to the Light Necromancer and evolve into something far stronger. If he used his devouring ability without the use of a spirit ring he would need to concentrate on using the ability instead of finding out how to interact with souls. For this reason he transferred the method he used to devour energy and life into the spirit ring.

The spirit ring grew brighter and brighter as a new spirit ability was added. The ring expanded seeming to balloon up as it greedily sucked the surrounding spirit energy towards itself. Settling down after a while the light within Shanes mind space receded once more returning to the gloomy darkness only brightened by the softly rotating yellow spirit ring in the centre like a star in a dark universe.

The spirit ring now possessed two abilities. The Spirit Cloaking ability further consolidated and become stronger, now it would be able to hide form 1000-Year-old beasts and a new ability was added. Devouring roots, the ability to devour life and other resources from living organisms under 1000 Years of cultivation age or dead soul beasts.

The only downfall was that's Shane range of observation grew in smaller increments after reaching 100 metres and was now only 500 metres not the expected 1000m. This did dampen Shanes mood slightly but his resolve grew firmer to become stronger and survive in this new world.

A world with new opportunities and experiences awaited him after all.

(A.N- Hey guys Chowder here. I have had comments regards to a new name for Shane in the Douluo universe. Comment any ideas for names for Shane and possible others for the story as it progresses.

Dont forgot to leave behind your stones.)