boyutpedia Chapter 117 In every era, there is one overpowered monster.
Chapter 117 In every era, there is one overpowered monster.
Chapter 117 In every era, there is an overpowered monster.
Within the villa area of the Spirit Pagoda headquarters.
"One hundred million Federal Credits, plus two types of ten-thousand-year-old spiritual treasures, fifteen types of thousand-year-old spiritual treasures, and seventy-seven types of hundred-year-old spiritual treasures—this master is truly a worthwhile investment!"
Lu Xingchen nestled in the soft velvet sofa, his fingertips brushing against the gleaming white storage bracelet on his wrist.
A soft halo flashed by, and a dazzling array of treasures poured out like water, piling up into a small mountain on the gleaming mahogany coffee table.
This master is really generous. He always gives out resources directly without any hesitation. It's so satisfying!
What does 100 million Federal Credits mean?
Even for an ordinary titled Douluo, it would take several years of careful saving to accumulate such a huge sum of money.
After all, the path of a Soul Master is fraught with money pits. Upgrading battle armor requires exorbitantly priced materials, purchasing high-level Soul Spirits requires emptying one's savings, and increasing the age of a Soul Spirit is a bottomless pit. Any one of these can make even Title Douluos worry themselves sick.
This was a golden age of emerging Soul Masters, but also an era of highly monopolized resources. The four super powers, like four towering mountains, firmly held more than 90% of the continent's top resources in their hands.
Ordinary Soul Masters who want to climb the ranks either have to submit and join them, becoming pawns under the command of a powerful force.
Alternatively, one can only take on those tedious and dangerous tasks and work for them for the rest of their life.
As a result, even titled Douluo don't live a particularly wealthy life.
Lu Xingchen then picked up a jade box containing a rare spiritual item. Inside the box lay a section of a bright red root, which was none other than the Crimson Blood Dragon Ginseng, capable of nourishing soul power.
The market price for a ten-thousand-year-old spiritual item is at least 50 million Federal Credits, and that's for an ordinary-quality item.
True top-grade ten-thousand-year-old spiritual treasures only appear at the continent's top auctions, often as the grand finale, attracting fierce competition from all sorts of big shots, with final transaction prices often reaching hundreds of millions, enough to make ordinary soul masters hesitate.
In comparison, the ancient spirits are much more approachable.
Unless it's an extinct rare species, you can find them at auctions or Soul Master Merchant Guilds in major cities, and the prices are reasonable.
However, Lu Xingchen was, after all, a man who had seen the world.
Although the resources Ya Li provided were incredibly generous, they were still far inferior to the top-tier soul spirits and rare artifacts that Li Mengjie "gifted" to him.
After happily calculating the contents of his storage bracelet, Lu Xingchen flicked his finger and put all the treasures away. Then, he took out a crystal-clear soul spirit ball from his soul tool.
A pale purple halo flowed slowly within the sphere, inside which slept a butterfly the size of a palm—the very soul spirit he had carefully selected from the Soul Spirit Tower.
"Sigh~"
Lu Xingchen looked at the Soul Spirit Orb and couldn't help but sigh. He then looked up at Li Mengjie, who was sitting on the opposite sofa, and asked, "The Soul Spirit Tower should contain all sorts of powerful soul spirits collected by the Spirit Transmission Tower over thousands of years, right? How come I can't find the Golden Lion Mastiff anywhere?"
Throughout the Douluo Continent trilogy, each installment features a superhuman soul beast whose stats are practically "out of control".
Take, for example, the Dark Demon Evil God Tiger in Douluo Continent I, which is definitely an overpowered monster at the top level.
It possesses six major attributes: wind, thunder, darkness, evil, space, and time. Despite having only 60,000 years of cultivation, it almost killed Tang San, who was level 97 and wielding the Trident of the Sea God.
Such a record truly earns him the title of "outperformer".
The super-powerful monster in Douluo Continent II is the Emperor Beast with Three Eyes and Golden Appearance.
With 15,000 years of cultivation, he possesses the four attributes of ultimate light, ultimate fire, spirit, and destiny. With only 10,000 years of cultivation, he can fight against a 100,000-year-old soul beast.
Unfortunately, this auspicious beast had a high start but a low finish. It was full of prestige when it first appeared, but it was immediately suppressed by Xuanzi, who was at level 98, and didn't have any outstanding performances throughout.
It wasn't until it was sacrificed to Huo Yuhao, yielding a large number of top-tier destiny soul skills and soul bones, that it finally lived up to its reputation as an imperial auspicious beast.
The overpowered monster in Douluo Continent III is the Golden Lion Mastiff.
This kind of soul beast doesn't have any fancy special abilities; it's purely about numerical superiority, and it's born with an extremely domineering domain—the Overlord.
A golden-haired lion-dog with ten thousand years of cultivation was able to overwhelm the careless Title Douluo Tang Wulin, and even ignore the bloodline suppression of the Golden Dragon King.
After activating the Overlord Domain, its power became even more terrifying. Even Tang Wulin commented that its strength was comparable to that of Xiong Jun when he unleashed his full power.
You should know that Xiong Jun is a super soul beast with 480,000 years of cultivation: Dark Gold Terrorclaw Bear!
In comparison, the Golden Lion Mastiff's stats are so outrageous they seem designed out of thin air, exceeding all limits.
Lu Xingchen had been hoping to find such a spirit in the Soul Spirit Tower, but after searching several times, he couldn't even find a single hair of the Golden Lion Mastiff.
Li Mengjie explained calmly, "The Soul Spirit Tower is a place specifically set up by the Spirit Transfer Tower for selecting soul spirits for its core members and top geniuses from the outside world. The soul spirits inside have all undergone strict screening, and the primary condition is to ensure that they can be safely absorbed by the soul master."
"The Golden-haired Lion Mastiff you mentioned belongs to the Unyielding Spirit category in the classification of spirits." These spirits are inherently unruly and wild, making them impossible for ordinary spirit masters to refine and absorb. Forcible fusion will only result in a backlash, causing anything from severed meridians to instant death.
She paused, then added, "The Spirit Pagoda wouldn't put such a high-risk soul into the Spirit Pagoda."
"Otherwise, if a Soul Master goes through great hardships to pass the trials of the Soul Spirit Tower, happily chooses this kind of Soul Spirit, only to lose their life during the absorption process, wouldn't the reputation of the Spirit Pagoda be ruined?"
"Is it guaranteed to be absorbed?"
Lu Xingchen's eyes lit up, and he immediately became interested, asking, "I've heard rumors that the Soul Spirit Tower's hundredth floor and above are filled with ferocious beast-level soul spirits. Can those big guys be absorbed by soul masters?"
"Of course."
Li Mengjie nodded, her tone resolute: "Although the process is extremely difficult, as long as the Soul Master can defeat those ferocious beast Soul Spirits in a fair duel, there is a high probability that they will gain their recognition and form a Soul Spirit Contract."
"A thousand years ago, the Spirit Pagoda produced a genius of extraordinary talent. With his level 90 soul power and a three-word battle armor, he defeated a six-winged demonic tiger with 200,000 years of cultivation in a fair one-on-one duel."
"In the end, the ferocious beast willingly signed a soul contract with him, and from then on accompanied him in his battles for the rest of his life."
Li Mengjie's voice was calm, yet carried a hint of timelessness: "Once a soul beast reaches the 100,000-year level, its intelligence is already comparable to that of a human, let alone a ferocious beast. Having been imprisoned in the Soul Spirit Tower for thousands of years, how could they not yearn for the mountains, rivers, lakes, and seas of the outside world?"
"Rather than slowly wasting away in the tower and eventually turning into a wisp of smoke, it's better to choose a human you approve of and travel the world with him."
"At least this way, I can see the world's splendor and even have the chance to use the power of a Soul Master to break through to the unattainable God-level realm."
Yes, souls are not immortal; they also die.
Even with the most advanced sealing technology in the Spirit Pagoda, it cannot withstand the erosion of time.
The essence of the soul will gradually diminish over time and eventually perish completely.
There will never be a situation where someone thinks, "This 100,000-year-old soul is too precious; I want to leave it to my descendants so that it can be passed down from generation to generation without end."
If that were the case, wouldn't the Soul Spirit Technology allow Soul Beasts to achieve a different kind of immortality? Why would Soul Beasts hate the Spirit Pagoda so much?
Even if the Spirit Pagoda later developed a soul recycling technology, under normal circumstances, a 100,000-year-old soul can only be passed down to three or four generations of masters before its essence is completely exhausted, leading to its final demise.
The so-called "inherited soul spirits" of those large families are only of two kinds—one is the top-quality soul spirit left by the ancestors, which can be passed down for two or three generations;
Another method is to use a unique spirit as a family emblem, so that people can immediately associate the spirit with the corresponding family. For example, the angel spirit of the Le family in the south is such a spirit.
Li Mengjie took a sip of tea and continued, "After the ferocious beast spirit is defeated, it may choose to acknowledge the spirit master out of respect for the spirit master's strength."
"But the indomitable spirit will never submit; this is the origin of the word 'indomitable.' Even if you grind it to dust, it will never yield, much less become anyone's spirit."
She looked at Lu Xingchen and added, "The golden-haired lion-dog you mentioned is just like that. Once, a quasi-titled Douluo refused to believe in such things and tried to absorb it by force. As a result, the golden-haired lion-dog resisted to the death and directly burst his body."
"Considering the rarity of the Golden Lion Mastiff, the Spirit Pagoda could not bear to destroy it, so it sent it to the edge of the intermediate Spirit Ascension Platform to serve as its guardian."
Lu Xingchen nodded thoughtfully, a hint of understanding flashing in his eyes.
That's right, I've uncovered another interesting secret from Li Mengjie.
"Never mind, it's okay if we didn't find the Golden Lion Mastiff. There will always be another chance in the future."
Lu Xingchen shook the soul orb in his hand, a smile playing on his lips. "At least the soul spirits I chose this time weren't a complete loss."
Fingertips caressed the cold Soul Orb. Inside the orb, a palm-sized purple butterfly rested quietly, its wings covered with intricate black patterns, exuding a sinister aura of death.
Although this spirit doesn't have the terrifying stats of the Golden Lion Mastiff, it's no less rare and belongs to the same category of super spirit beasts—the Nether Butterfly, a super spirit beast that is born with the ability to control the attribute of death.
These soul beasts live only in the darkest and coldest corners of the continent, feeding on yin energy and death energy. Ordinary soul masters have never even heard of them, let alone seen them.
The growth rate of the Dark Butterfly is astonishingly slow. When it is first born, it is less than an inch in size, and it takes a thousand years for it to grow an inch.
The one in Lu Xingchen's hand, however, has a cultivation level of 45,000 years!
The Dark Butterfly's greatest ability is not combat, but the extraction of death energy.
If it encounters a Soul Master whose Martial Soul is compatible, the boost it can provide is nothing short of miraculous, and it can even directly promote the evolution of the Martial Soul!
For evil spirit masters, or spirit masters whose martial spirits inherently possess the attribute of death, a Nether Butterfly spirit is an absolute treasure that is hard to come by.
For example, if a Soul Master whose Martial Soul is a Demon Puppet can absorb the Nether Butterfly as a Soul Spirit, their Martial Soul is very likely to evolve directly into a Death God Demon Puppet.
(PS: Death God Puppet, the martial soul of Zhongli Wu, the leader of the Holy Spirit Cult in Douluo Continent II.)
The origin of this ghost butterfly is also not simple.
It was a thousand years ago, when a certain generation of the Spirit Pagoda master killed a super Douluo-level evil soul master and, while the corpse was still warm, sent it directly into the Spirit Pagoda laboratory to experiment with soul extraction technology.
The result was wonderful; the Spirit Pagoda successfully retrieved the Nether Butterfly.
Unfortunately, the attribute of death is too taboo, almost synonymous with evil spirit masters.
Therefore, for thousands of years, the soul of this Nether Butterfly had been sealed away in a corner of the Soul Tower, gathering dust, until Lu Xingchen appeared and it finally saw the light of day again.
"Death attribute—I wonder if this Nether Butterfly can fuse with Bibi Dong's divine bones?" Lu Xingchen murmured to himself, holding the Soul Spirit Orb.
He's almost become addicted to refining soul spirits. Whenever he has rare materials, he can't resist trying to fuse them and create new soul beasts.
In his exclusive little world, many strange and unusual new species of soul beasts have been born, each with remarkable potential.
Lu Xingchen looked up at Li Mengjie and said, "One Nether Butterfly isn't enough, Mengjie? Can you retrieve some soul beast genes from the Spirit Pagoda headquarters?"
Li Mengjie showed no reaction to Lu Xingchen's direct address of her by her first name, as if it were the natural course of things.
She nodded slightly: "Sure. With my authority in the Spirit Pagoda and my contributions over the years, I can exchange a certain number of soul beast materials and soul spirit samples from the headquarters' gene bank."
"Um."
Lu Xingchen nodded in satisfaction, then bluntly threw out another request: "Besides soul beast genes, also get me a map showing the distribution of soul masters in Shrek's outer city. It doesn't need to be too detailed, just roughly mark the gathering places of soul masters below the seventh ring soul saint level."
He then changed the subject, adding, "By the way, the residences of high-level Soul Masters above the Soul Saint level should also be marked out. That way, I won't accidentally go to the wrong house and get into unnecessary trouble."
He wanted this distribution map, naturally, to prepare for the upcoming promotion ceremony—he wanted 100,000 people to have the same dream on the same night.
In the promotion ceremony, the role that a high-level Soul Master can play is enough to replace hundreds of ordinary people.
However, Lu Xingchen did not intend to provoke those who were too strong. Soul Masters with a ring of seven or higher were not within his consideration. Soul Masters with a ring of seven or lower were enough for him.
"This isn't difficult," Li Mengjie agreed without hesitation.
The Spirit Tower has been rooted in Shrek City for many years, and its influence is deeply entrenched.
Apart from the core soul master information of Tang Sect and Shrek Academy being top secret, the information of other ordinary soul masters has long been registered and organized by the Spirit Pagoda.
Information about high-level Soul Masters involves confidentiality, and inquiries about them could easily alert the headquarters' higher-ups.
However, the residences of low-level Soul Masters below the seventh ring are hardly secrets, and they can be retrieved without any difficulty.