The Professional Rankings, in twelve volumes, each bearing the name of my lord.

The clones guessed correctly.

After the two Song hexagrams are merged, it is still the Song hexagram, without any change.

But that's only on the surface.

The Song hexagram removed the information hiding from this double Song hexagram and showed its panel.

"Huh... a bug?"

The merged clone's panel was located between the original two panels, constantly shaking and making it impossible to see clearly.

The ability to create clones is inherently bugged.

The Dark Artifacts are even more overpowered.

With so many bugs, it's a miracle it even runs; you'd be lucky to see it in the backend. You'd definitely see a bunch of errors.

Very reasonable.

How strong is their combat capability?

As the Dark Balance said, have we become stronger?

Song Gua found a level 30 second-tier clone and sparred with the merged Song Gua.

In actual combat, it was shown that the skills used by the fusion entity were not the skills of the original two clones, but a strange fusion technique.

Some fusion skills still show traces of the original skills, while others are no longer recognizable.

As for its power and effect, it completely outclasses a second-stage clone!

The fusion entity floated away.

"Whoa!! We're so strong after fusing!"

"Hahaha! You bunch of rotten apples, come at me all at once!"

The clones threw away the sunflower seed shells in their hands and rushed forward.

The fusion entity was dumbfounded.

"Hey, hey guys, just kidding, just kidding! Don't take it seriously!"

"Don't hit my face, don't hit my face, I was wrong, I was wrong, I was wrong, I was wrong!"

"Oh~~~ That won't work~~~"

After being ganged up on and beaten, the fused body Song Gua sat on the ground with a bruised and swollen face, questioning the meaning of life.

Their combat power has indeed increased many times over, and after fusion, they are much stronger than ordinary second-stage clones, but they are still not strong enough to fight ten people at once, let alone the hundreds of them here.

After being beaten, the Song hexagram disintegrated.

The two looked at each other, realizing that the injuries they had just sustained had been split between them.

Song Gua frowned slightly.

"Curious Bro, ask Libra, why is the fusion time so short? Didn't you just say that the Dark Libra's recovery could last for more than ten minutes?"

Curious Guy replied very quickly.

The prerequisite for maintaining the timer for more than ten minutes is to avoid injury; once injured, the time will be shortened.

The two who had just merged immediately got angry.

"See! It's all your fault! Otherwise, we could have bragged for another ten minutes!"

These two were ganged up on and beaten up again.

Next, Song Gua wanted to try a second type of random fusion.

"Who wants to integrate with this microphone?"

All the clones retreated fifty steps, leaving a vacuum around Song Gua.

"If someone takes the initiative, I'll bestow the title of 'North Wind' upon him!"

The clones scattered like birds and beasts, kicking up dust as they fled, leaving only Song Gua in the warehouse in the blink of an eye.

"The team is hard to manage... Oh well, we have to be careful with the Dark Artifacts anyway. Speaking of which, this random fusion, it would be really fun if we could trick the enemy into agreeing to the fusion."

Sitting in the bandit headquarters, looking at the night outside the warehouse, Song Gua felt somewhat troubled.

"The Dark Artifacts are really useful. This kind of foreign power attacks local forces without any logic, and it even confuses the game system, but..."

But everything comes at a price.

The more a Dark Artifact is used, the stronger its spirit becomes.

Once a spirit becomes strong enough, it can backfire on its host when it's in someone else's possession.

In Song Gua's case, it means the Soul-Devouring Pearl explodes and returns to the artifact.

Although the Dark Artifact itself is useless without a host, it is strong enough to expand the spirit of the Soul Devouring Pearl. Even if Song Gua finds a clone to be his host, it is uncertain who is whose father.

Not to mention there's no way to completely erase the spirit, even if it were, the artifact without the spirit would be rendered useless.

This is a contradictory matter.

I want to use it, but I'm afraid it will grow too powerful.

Song Gua pondered.

Actually, it's not necessary to destroy the spirit.

The battle on the shore of Heart Lake reveals that the spirits of the Dark Artifacts weaken when consumed in excess, and may even require the expenditure of one's own soul power.

If there is a way, cut back the growing spirit from him.

Wouldn't that make it a perpetual motion machine?

Song Gua thought of the third Illusionary Divine Stele he had obtained from Zhao Wuji.

Zhao Wuji said that the Soul-Devouring Pearl was obtained by his Zhao family from an illusion. Could it be the illusion corresponding to this divine stele?

Without saying a word, Song Gua took out the divine stele and organized a viewing session.

The observation is complete.

Song Gua smiled.

Yes.

exactly.

The illusory world corresponding to this divine stele is called "Soul Cultivation Continent." As the name suggests, the extraordinary power system in this world is entirely based on various forms of soul cultivation.

Soul cultivators are naturally a group of masters who manipulate souls.

That's why something like the Soul-Devouring Pearl could be crafted.

However, the Soul-Devouring Bead is just the tip of the iceberg.

On the Soul Cultivation Continent, there are still many cultivators who are involved in soul manipulation.

This includes "Soul Refining Water," which weakens but does not eliminate the soul power of a soul entity.

"Use the Soul-Devouring Beads to trap the spirits of the Dark Artifacts. As they grow stronger, they are passively reinforced. When they become too large to be contained, use the Soul-Refining Water to weaken them. Continue trapping, continue using, continue weakening—a perfect closed loop!"

In this way, as long as the illusion is not cleared, and the information in the divine stele is repeatedly used to enter the illusion and obtain the necessary resources, the dark artifact can continue to be kept in the bandit camp.

Da Congming, who was standing nearby, also learned of this information.

"Boss, hurry up and find out where this illusion is. We can enter it, get five more Soul-Devouring Beads, and then take over all the other Dark Artifacts... Holy crap, this is invincible!"

Invincible is indeed invincible, but the enemy might also be drawn by the scent.

The number of dark artifacts in his possession must match Song Gua's strength.

There are currently two known to the Dark Gold Seal. If he publicizes this, the Federation will definitely cause trouble for the bandits.

Fortunately, the fact that this guy is the host of the Dark Artifact was also exposed during the battle at Heart Lake, so he might not dare to contact the Federation.

If there are seven, the Federation will turn the Earth's crust upside down to find the bandits.

Song Gua has no desire to acquire more Dark Artifacts for the time being; he only wants to complete the cycle of having Dark Artifacts work for him forever.

After some searching, Song Gua found the location of the illusionary realm corresponding to the Soul Cultivation World.

Located in the western part of the Huaxia Administrative Region, within the territory of Xichuan City, it is currently closed.

The Huaxia administrative region has three first-tier cities.

Shangjing, Jinghai, Xichuan.

It's very difficult to get into these top-tier cities by public transportation.

Since the illusion is still closed, we can plan how to get there later.

"Brothers, our plan to take down the Zhao family when we had nothing else to do has now come to a perfect end!"

Not only did we successfully remove the Zhao family from Yunshan City, preventing them from harassing us, but we also gained many unexpected benefits!

"Then next up is... the awards ceremony!"

The familiar march of athletes resounded in the bandit headquarters.

"Thump thump thump! Thump thump! Thump thump thump! Wait! Thump thump..."

Although it was late at night, the bandits were having a blast.

"I want to go on the podium! I want to go on the podium!"

"What the hell did you do to deserve this? Get out of here!"

"I want to be a hostess! I want to be a hostess!"

"Let me see if the surgery was successful!"

"It's that exciting awards ceremony again! Let's wait and see how many big promises the old fox will come up with this time!"