Jacob was startled, and his eyes flickered intensely, 'Nether Vision Ghost Form? So, I was right about Ghost Form being the key to completing this trial, and this Nether Vision Ghost Form should be quite rare even among the Ghost Forms…'
Jacob had many questions, but he held them to himself this time and focused on the trial. He knew he would get the answers as soon as he cleared these trials, and he had a feeling that this Artifact Spirit wouldn't be so kind to reveal everything at this stage.
No longer paying attention to the Artifact Spirit's wanton laughter, he sent his soul sense into the octahedron again and directly enveloped nine more soul quartzes with it.
Thereafter, Jacob pulled them out using half of his power and gained nine more soul quartzes, making ten total. In the Class-1 Soulless Flame formula, Jacob is required to combine ten souls to create Class-1 Soulless Flames.
However, before combining them, he needs to purify them, or even with a sliver of negative life force or contamination, he would lose his 'materials.'
Jacob grabbed a soul quartz and felt the life force within, and a hint of surprise flashed past his eyes as his eyes of the judge shimmered, 'This soul should have been in at least a legendary noble state when it was alive. Moreover, this quartz greatly resembled the Life Crystals that Dark Beings and I formed.
'But unlike Life Crystal, this quartz is purely made to trap souls, not just life force, and there is something different about this soul within. It neither seems to belong to the living nor dark being, yet it holds such a terrifying resentment and negative life force…'
'Life Bane Wheel…' Jacob instantly activated the Life Bane Wheel, and the next moment, a blurry scarlet ring divided into two sections, pitch-black and pure white, formed above Jacob's palm!
This was the initial structure of the Life Bane Wheel, the manifestation of his comprehension of the Immortal Chapter, while the two sections consisted of the Life Bane Wheel's aspects, the Life Devour (Black) and the Life Injection (White).
But the Life Bane Wheel was nowhere near finished; Jacob created it with the intention of assimilating the entire Immortal Chapter of Cursed Blood Progenitor into it. That's why he chose the shape of a wheel, where he can easily add more sections as he creates and understands more of the use of Immortal Chapter.
Now, after discovering the Soulmancer profession, comprehending the formula of the Class-1 Soulless Flame, and analyzing this soul quartz, he felt inspired. He didn't even need to mull over it further because after seeing the soul quartz and the octahedron and adding the memories of Soulless Ghost King and Drunkard Ghost King, he knew what he needed to do.
Jacob didn't even bother to use Life Devour or Life Injection and directly activated the Blood Shaper and started to add another aspect to the Life Bane Wheel.
The blurry Life Bane Wheel started to revolve, invisible glyphs began to emerge on its scarlet ring, and a thread suddenly shot towards the soul quartz in his hand and connected to the Life Bane Wheel.
Jacob's eyes flickered violently as he controlled the Blood Shaper and shaped the ability according to this inspiration, and thereupon, another section formed in the Life Bane Wheel.
However, this section was of a different color; it was ghostly dark purple and filled with negative energy, and as this new section on the Life Bane Wheel formed, the soul quartz began to crumble while the mercury-like pitch-black soul in it was turning blurry.
"T-this is!?" Artifact Spirit had stopped laughing at some time, and its trembling voice rang at this moment.
Jacob ignored it and continued to forge the new section according to his inspiration, but at this moment, the soul quartz was completely exhausted and turned into fine sand particles.
'Not enough…' Jacob's eyes flickered before he pulled the remaining nine soul quartzes and connected them to his Life Bane Wheel without hesitation.
The Life Bane Wheel revolved even more powerfully as it absorbed the soul quartzes, and a new section in the Life Bane Wheel began to stabilize. By the time Jacob was satisfied, all the soul quartzes were gone.
The Life Bane Wheel stopped revolving, and now it had three sections equally divided within: black, white, and purple.
Jacob's eyes flickered with elation as he looked at the purple section, 'I finally managed to create an aspect after combing the Ghost Race's innate aspects, and all thanks to Soulmancy…let's call it Spectral Despair!'
Spectral Despair, the third aspect of the Life Bane Wheel, was created after Jacob understood the Ghost Race's innate talent related to the Negative Life Force and their control over souls. It was a unique aspect that would not only allow Jacob to use the Negative Life Force freely, but he could also devour or remove it even the Ghost Race couldn't typically.
Now, even if Jacob's physique can't handle negative energy, he can easily achieve it with the Spectral Despair. In retrospect, Jacob just created an ability that could imitate the entirety of Ghost Race's unique talents. With the Life Bane Wheel's infinite growth potential, he can continue to evolve it.
This was just like how Immortika had told me about the ability to create aspects with the Cursed Blood Progenitor's complete mastery. Jacob didn't fully grasp it before, but now he knew how to achieve it.
As long as he understood the bloodline and their abilities to a certain level, he could replicate them, and the Life Bane Wheel was the key! Lastly, the reason the Spectral Despair came alive was for Soulmancy!
"What kind of aspect is this?" Artifact Spirit's inquisitive voice rang at this moment with a hint of fear.
Jacob completely ignored the Artifact Spirit since he didn't want to give it time to suspect anything, and he wanted to complete this trial so the Artifact Spirit wouldn't go against him even if it wanted to.
Without any hesitation, Jacob pulled ten more soul quartzes and activated the Spectral Despair, creating a strong suction force, and those soul quartzes were absorbed into the Life Bane Wheel.
'Purify!' Jacob's eyes flare as the Life Bane Wheel revolves, and black miasma filled with negativity begins to release from the Life Bane Wheel.
'This miasma has poisonous properties, and it's quite potent…' Jacob looked at the miasma, and he could feel it had an effect on one's mind, which made it quite useful.
He wasn't expecting even this miasma without any life force to be helpful, but he didn't gather it since it wasn't the time to research poisons. Now that he has the Spectral Despair, he can research this whenever he wants.
Thereupon, the black miasma became thinner and thinner before it completely vanished, and Jacob controlled the Life Bane Wheel, 'Life Injection, Spectral Condensing!'
The next moment, the Spectral Despair and Life Injection sections of the Life Bane Wheel started to overlap. This is how the Life Injection works: when Life Devour devours life force, the Life Injection injects it into Jacob, or it can condense the life force into the Life Devour directly into Life Crystals with 100% purity.
Jacob wanted to apply the same rules with the Spectral Despair; the purified soul within the Spectral Despair should be able to condense into pure soul forms like the soul quartz and life crystals. Jacob was confident in achieving it.
The next moment, the entire Life Bane Wheel's interior turns white, like a portal, and spits out ten ethereal white beads filled with pure life force.
Even Jacob was slightly astounded by the pure life force within these white beads, and they hadn't lost their spirituality; they were still souls, but in the purest form, and anyone should be able to absorb them without any backlash, even the Living Beings.
Grabbing the ten white beads, Jacob looked towards the dark surroundings and impassively questioned, "What do you think, Lord Artifact Spirit? They should be sufficient to create Class-1 Soulless Flame, right?"