Douluo Continent: Targeted Thoughts, Winning Over Bibi Dong at the Start

Qin Heng slowly suppressed his aura, and the spring water of the Ice and Fire Yin-Yang Well returned to calm.

He emerged from the spring, his bones crackling and popping as if he had been reborn.

However, Qin Heng was not arrogant. One must eat one bite at a time and walk one step at a time. For him, the most urgent thing right now was to obtain his eighth spirit ring.

Qin Heng sat cross-legged on the rock of the Ice and Fire Yin-Yang Well, his brows furrowed slightly as he fell into deep thought.

His spirit ring configuration is completely different from that of any other spirit master on the Douluo Continent.

Purple, black, black, red – from his very first spirit ring, the lifespan of his spirit rings was never quite normal.

His seventh spirit ring was formed from a wisp of Asura God's power, with an age of 180,000 years. This single spirit ring was enough to drive the entire spirit master world crazy.

However, a problem arose: Qin Heng's seventh spirit ring had an excessively high age limit, which directly raised the lower limit of his subsequent spirit rings.

With his seventh spirit ring being 180,000 years old, surely his eighth spirit ring couldn't be worse than the seventh? Logically, the eighth spirit ring should be at least 400,000 years old to match his current spirit ring configuration.

Soul beasts that are over 400,000 years old are extremely rare on the entire Douluo Continent.

The Di Tian, ​​Xiong Jun, Bi Ji, Wan Yao Wang, and Chi Wang in the Star Dou Great Forest, and the Ice and Snow Emperors in the far north, any one of them has a cultivation of more than three or four hundred thousand years.

The problem is that these ferocious beasts are all incredibly difficult to deal with, especially Di Tian, ​​the 800,000-year-old Black Dragon King, whose strength is comparable to that of a demigod.

Given Qin Heng's current strength, daring to come to his door would be tantamount to suicide.

Moreover, Qin Heng did not want to follow the old path of hunting soul beasts to obtain soul rings. He obtained all of Ilex's inheritance of necromancy, including complete knowledge of soul contracts.

In the original work, the Soul system was created thanks to Electrox's contract magic.

Qin Heng naturally also mastered this method of contract. However, after studying it carefully, he discovered that although the principles of Electrox's necromancy contract and the soul-spirit method in the original work were similar, they were not entirely the same.

Necromantic contracts tend to be more about enslavement and control. The two parties to the contract are not equal. The necromancer has absolute control over the contracted object, and the contracted object has almost no room for resistance.

While the Soul Spirit Technique in the original work improved the situation of soul beasts to some extent, allowing them to retain their consciousness and souls, it was still essentially based on the sacrifice of soul beasts.

Soul beasts must sacrifice their lives, transforming their soul power and bloodline into soul rings and soul bones for soul masters, leaving only a wisp of their remnant soul to reside within the soul master's body.

In Qin Heng's view, this approach was far from perfect.

True perfection should be based on equality and mutual benefit between both parties.

Soul beasts do not need to sacrifice their lives, and soul masters do not need to bear the consequences of killing. The two sides achieve a symbiotic relationship through a contract, helping each other to succeed and grow together.

Once the thought took hold, it could never be erased from Qin Heng's mind.

"Since the existing methods of soul cultivation are not perfect, I will create a more perfect one myself," Qin Heng muttered to himself, a determined glint in his eyes.

He decided to try to build a completely new method of soul cultivation on his own.

This decision is easy to make, but incredibly difficult to execute. The art of the soul involves multiple layers, including soul contracts, soul power conversion, and the rules of heaven and earth, each of which is extremely complex.

While Electrolux's necromancer contract provides a foundation at the soul level, how to integrate it with the rules of heaven and earth in the Douluo Continent, and how to enable soul beasts to condense soul rings and soul bones without sacrificing their lives, are all unprecedented challenges.

But Qin Heng was never one to shy away from difficulties. He immediately left the Ice and Fire Yin-Yang Well and began his crazy experiments.

The experiment required materials. Qin Heng turned his gaze to those evil soul masters.

Evil Soul Masters are the most despicable beings on the Douluo Continent. They take pleasure in killing and use the consumption of life as a means of cultivation. Every Evil Soul Master's hands are stained with the blood of innocent people. Qin Heng has no qualms about using them for experiments.

He silently infiltrated the border region between the Heavenly Soul Empire and the Sun Moon Empire, an area where evil soul masters were most rampant.

With his strength, capturing a few evil spirit masters would be a piece of cake.

In just half a month, he secretly captured over a hundred evil soul masters, ranging from Soul Masters to Soul Douluos.

Besides evil soul masters, Qin Heng also needs soul beasts as test subjects.

Instead of provoking those ferocious beasts in the Star Dou Great Forest, he captured some low-level soul beasts in the Sunset Forest and several soul beast forests within the Heavenly Soul Empire.

There are ten-year soul beasts, hundred-year soul beasts, and thousand-year soul beasts of all kinds.

Qin Heng chose an abandoned mine deep within the Sunset Forest as the location for the experiment.

The mine shaft extends hundreds of meters underground, with a spacious interior and is extremely well-hidden, so there's no need to worry about being discovered.

The initial experiment was disastrous. Qin Heng attempted to directly transplant the core runes of the Necromancer's Contract into the relationship between Soul Masters and Soul Beasts, but the rules of Douluo Continent were completely different from those of the plane where Electrolux lived.

The moment the necromancer contract was activated, the rules of heaven and earth reacted strongly, the contract runes collapsed instantly, and the evil soul master and soul beast, who were the test subjects, both exploded and died, their flesh and blood mangled.

Qin Heng expressionlessly cleaned up the remains and continued with the next experiment. He adjusted the arrangement of the contract runes and tried to use soul power instead of necromancy as the driving energy of the contract.

This time, the contract runes were somewhat stable, but the soul power of the soul beast and the soul power of the soul master clashed violently in the contract channel. Both sides' spiritual seas were simultaneously affected by the backlash. The evil soul master instantly became an idiot, while the soul beast's soul shattered directly.

Despite failing again, Qin Heng was not discouraged.

He carefully analyzed the reasons for each failure, dissecting every detail of the contract runes and optimizing them one by one.

He carved dense runes, formulas, and deduction processes all over the stone walls of the mine, transforming the entire mine into a huge laboratory.

Time passed day by day, and a month later, Qin Heng had exhausted the evil soul masters he had captured, and the low-level soul beasts had been replaced one batch after another.

He went out and captured another batch of evil spirit masters and continued his experiments.

On the stone walls of the mine, the rune formulas had already reached the third layer, but Qin Heng's progress was becoming increasingly slow. The core problem of the soul contract—how to enable a soul beast to condense a soul ring and soul bone without sacrificing its life—remained unresolved.

The rules of heaven and earth impose extremely strict restrictions on the formation of soul rings. The bloodline and soul power of a soul beast must be transformed by the rules of heaven and earth at the moment of life sacrifice in order to condense into a soul ring.

If one does not sacrifice a life, the rules of heaven and earth will not respond at all.

Qin Heng once hit a bottleneck.

The turning point came in the third month. After another failed experiment, Qin Heng suddenly thought of a direction he had never considered before—soul tools.

Soul tools are a unique technological system in the Douluo Continent, which transforms soul power into various functional effects through soul guidance arrays.

The essence of a soul-guiding array is the simulation and utilization of the rules of heaven and earth. If a special soul-guiding array can be designed to simulate the fluctuations of the rules of heaven and earth when a soul beast sacrifices its life at the same time as the contract is signed, it may be possible to deceive the rules of heaven and earth and allow the soul beast to condense a soul ring and soul bone without sacrificing its life.

The moment the idea popped into his head, Qin Heng's eyes lit up. He had spent a whole year at the Sun Moon Royal Soul Master Academy and his understanding of soul tools had reached a fairly high level.

Although he can't be considered one of the top soul tool masters on the mainland, he is more than capable of designing some mid-to-high-level soul tool arrays.

More importantly, Qin Heng's approach is completely different from that of traditional Soul Masters.

Traditional soul masters only think within the framework of the soul tool itself, but Qin Heng is able to combine necromancy, soul contracts and soul tool technology to break the rules and create something unprecedented.

He immediately abandoned the experiment of the soul contract and began to design the soul guidance array. This time, the progress was much faster.

Qin Heng used the core runes of the Necromancer's Pact as a foundation, transforming them into the array structure of a soul-guiding magic circle. He found a delicate balance between the contract runes and the soul-guiding magic circle, allowing the two to be compatible and mutually reinforcing.

The contract runes are responsible for the connection at the soul level, while the soul guidance array is responsible for simulating the fluctuations of the rules of heaven and earth. The two work together seamlessly.

In the fourth month, Qin Heng successfully designed the first prototype magic array.

He inscribed the magic circle on a fist-sized piece of soul-guided metal, and then brought an evil soul master and a hundred-year-old soul beast to the front of the magic circle.

The moment the contract was activated, the magic circle burst forth with dazzling light, and a fluctuation of the laws of heaven and earth, extremely similar to that of a soul beast sacrifice, surged out from the magic circle.

The hundred-year-old soul beast let out a painful howl. Its soul beast bloodline was forcibly stripped from its body by the magic array and slowly condensed into a yellow soul ring under the influence of the rules of heaven and earth.

It worked!

But before Qin Heng could even rejoice, the hundred-year-old soul beast stiffened and collapsed. Its soul had suffered irreversible damage during the bloodline separation process. Although it survived, its soul was completely shattered, turning it into a walking corpse.

"The bloodline was stripped away too quickly, and the soul protection was insufficient." Qin Heng calmly recorded the reasons for the failure and continued to improve the magic array.

Afterwards, Qin Heng added a layer of soul protection barrier to the magic array. This time, the hundred-year-old soul beast did not suffer any soul damage during the bloodline separation process, but the quality of the separated soul ring dropped significantly, degenerating from yellow to white.

"The soul protection barrier consumed too much energy, resulting in incomplete bloodline separation." Qin Heng recorded again and made further improvements.

In the seventh month, Qin Heng finally found the optimal balance between protecting his soul and separating his bloodline.

He redesigned the energy distribution structure of the magic circle, so that the soul protection barrier consumes only the minimum energy, while ensuring the integrity of the bloodline separation to the maximum extent.

This time, the experiment was a complete success.

Under the influence of the magic array, the soul beast bloodline of a Netherworld Wolf with three hundred years of cultivation was completely extracted from its body and condensed into a bright yellow soul ring under the rules of heaven and earth.

Although the Nether Wolf itself was extremely weak, its soul was intact and it could recover after a period of rest.

Qin Heng looked at the deep yellow spirit ring and finally a smile appeared on his lips.

But he was not satisfied with this. The three-hundred-year-old soul beast was only the lowest-level test subject. He needed to verify whether this magic array was equally effective on higher-level soul beasts.

Over the next month, Qin Heng conducted experiments with thousand-year-old and ten-thousand-year-old soul beasts one by one.

Each experiment revealed new problems, but Qin Heng solved them one by one.

He optimized the magic circle through more than ten iterations, improving the compatibility between the contract runes and the soul guidance magic circle to a near-perfect degree.

After six months of work and the sacrifice of nearly three hundred evil soul masters and more than a thousand soul beasts of various ages, Qin Heng finally completed the final version of the entire Soul Spirit Technique.

This entirely new method of soul cultivation is fundamentally different from the soul system in the original work.

First, there's the vessel for the soul. Qin Heng designed a special soul tool called the "Soul Sphere."

The Soul Orb is only the size of a fist, and is made entirely of high-purity soul-guided metal. Its surface is covered with densely packed contract runes and soul-guided magic arrays.

Inside the Soul Orb is a separate space where the souls and consciousness of soul beasts can live and cultivate freely.

Souls can cultivate themselves and improve their cultivation level within the Soul Orb.

At the same time, the Soul Master's cultivation will also have feedback on the Soul Spirit, accelerating the Soul Spirit's growth.

Each time a spirit levels up, the age of the spirit rings it condenses will also increase.

In other words, a soul spirit that initially has only a thousand years of cultivation can have its soul ring age increased to ten thousand years or even one hundred thousand years through the joint cultivation of the soul master and the soul spirit.

Secondly, there is the form of the contract.

Qin Heng completely abandoned the old model that required the sacrifice of lives.

For soul beasts under 100,000 years old, there are two possible scenarios when signing a contract.

One type is a soul beast with strong bloodline power. Most of its bloodline will be stripped away, and a soul ring will be formed under the influence of the rules of heaven and earth. The soul beast itself will enter the soul spirit ball to recuperate. Although it will lose most of its cultivation, its life and soul will be preserved.

Soul beasts with weaker bloodline power can only retain their souls.

For high-level soul beasts that are over 100,000 years old, the contract method is more gentle.

The two parties directly enter into a soul contract, with the soul beast voluntarily separating a portion of its soul beast bloodline, which condenses into a soul ring and soul bone under the influence of the rules of heaven and earth.

The soul beast's true form enters the soul sphere intact, retaining all its cultivation and soul, and after a period of recuperation, it can recover to its peak state.

In this mode, soul beasts do not need to experience the pain of death, and soul masters do not need to bear the sin of killing.

Both parties are equal partners, growing together and benefiting each other.

Finally, there's the number of spirit rings a spirit can provide. Qin Heng also made a completely new design for this.

The number of soul rings that a soul spirit of different grades can provide varies greatly.

White and yellow grade soul spirits can only form one soul ring. Purple grade soul spirits can form two soul rings. Black grade soul spirits can form three soul rings. Red grade soul spirits, on the other hand, can form a total of four soul rings.

This design was inspired by the cultivation years of soul beasts.

The higher the cultivation level of a soul beast, the more concentrated the power of the laws of heaven and earth is contained in its bloodline, and the more soul rings can be condensed from the extracted soul beast bloodline.

The bloodline power of a 100,000-year-old soul beast is so vast that it can support the condensation of four soul rings, while the bloodline power of a 100-year-old soul beast can only barely condense one.

Of course, the more spirit rings a spirit provides, the higher the spiritual power required of the spirit master.

A red-grade soul spirit provides four soul rings, meaning that to directly contract a 10-year-old soul spirit, one must have at least the mental strength of a Title Douluo.

Without sufficient mental strength as support, rashly contracting a high-level soul will only result in the collapse of one's mental sea.

Qin Heng breathed a sigh of relief. He had created an unprecedented and more perfect method for controlling the soul.

Once this Soul Spirit Technique is made public, it will completely overturn the Soul Master cultivation system that has lasted for tens of thousands of years on the Douluo Continent.

The irreconcilable antagonism between Soul Masters and Soul Beasts will also be changed as a result.

However, Qin Heng does not intend to reveal this Soul Spirit Technique now.

The value of this Soul Technique is so great that it could drive the entire continent's powers crazy; he needs to find some partners.