Gu Zhi had lots of ideas so he tested them out one by one. Once his soul was healed he went on to try bolder ideas.
The first one he did was to change the setting to a training hall and has his soul practice using his techniques. Although he felt no significant progress with his soul he did feel like he was becoming more familiar with the techniques his soul was practicing.
The next thing he did was to conjure up spiritual medicine and helpful tea to boost his soul power through resources. Although he found no improvement he did feel calmer and more relaxed.
'Hmm, maybe I'm going about this all wrong'.
It was hard to tell. So far the only thing that has actually improved with his soul was the combat against the wolves and the meditation. In particular after killing a wolf he received a boost but after being bitten his soul lost a lot of strength. Perhaps he was taking a too direct approach and needed to think more abstract.
He had his soul live a completely normal life as he watched for any changes. He had an idea to simulate the concept of reincarnation with his soul in his spiritual domain but decided against it. It was too uncertain and could be highly dangerous. He watched as his soul remained the same the entire time throughout the one day experiment. He noticed that he couldn't speed up time in his domain, as in he couldn't speed up the time his soul spent meditating or doing a different activity.
The next thing he did was to imitate other peoples success and see how well it would be for his soul. He covered his soul in armor and found no improvement. He had no idea how devour other peoples souls and he didn't really want to go down that path so he didn't try that. Some people even changed their entire soul into an entirely different shape but he had no intention to do so, as he felt like his soul's structure was already as good as it can get.
Finally Gu Zhi did some of the more dramatic scenarios he imagined. He draped his soul in priest attire and made his spiritual domain into one that resembled a church. As he made his soul pray, he received an immediate response of blessings as he felt like his soul lit up like a Christmas tree.
He felt a euphoric sense of completion fill his being. Like he was being reborn into something greater, something stronger, something more complete. He could feel better, he felt better, and he could sense somethings he never could before. Like a sixth sense he could vaguely predict the future, understand peoples emotions better, and had a unique way of finding his way around.
'Wow that's defiantly something' he thought to himself.
It seems he had found his first real success in regards to his soul but there were only more questions that it left him with.
'Was this a one time thing, will it happen again, should I continue with this method, is it blasphemous to pray to others'.
From what Gu Zhi could tell, this was a one time blessing from his patron god. Just as Gu Xiao had described on how some people could gain permanent power from their rituals. It seemed like Gu Zhi had received a blessing from his god. As for his belief/faith Gu Zhi wasn't an idiot. On his deathbed in his previous life he had prayed to his god for a interesting afterlife and that was what he had received. Any doubt about wheather his god was real or not left him, now that he had this new life. Gu Xiao had described other gods as a matter of fact and rituals related to them. So it wasn't strange or alien to people that gods exist. What Gu Zhi was interested in was whether or not his god had any related religion already established here.
'I'll have to look into it later'.
Most gods he had heard about had their own power and divinity over a certain concept. Like the god of thunder for example. Most weren't described this way however and were called by their name. With their own concepts and divinity being attached to that name. For example, he had seen a description of a snake god in a textbook before called Rak'sha. It was a huge undead snake showing just its bones and rotting flesh. It was associated with the concepts of death, voodoo magic, blood, bones, curses, and witch craft. Believers of Rak'sha were very distant with their clothing, beliefs, and rituals. As for Gu Zhi his god had a name as well, but to speak it is forbidden.
Perhaps looking into these rituals that Gu Xiao had talked about would prove beneficial for Gu Zhi. As his patron god certainly seemed to like him.
With one great success out of the way Gu Zhi continued to try new things. Picking up on the clues from his last success he had his soul take on different professions to different degree's of success. He tried a warrior to a small success, a monk to medium success, and a cook to no success. After that he changed the setting of their environment to see what reactions it would cause. He found out that if the environment matches the profession the best results were drawn out.
'I still feel like I'm missing something. Maybe I should try something more... symbolic'.
He changed the entire environment to that of an endless staircase with his soul laid bare. He had the soul climb the staircase step by step as he noticed an improvement when the soul climbed the stairs and the opposite when it descended.
'Yes... I'm definitely on the right track with this one' Gu Zhi thought to himself.