Matters concerning the City of Slaughter would need to be considered slowly, but Xiao Lin already had a basic list of candidates in mind.
Tang San, Tang Ni, Xiao Wu, Yu Tianheng, Dugu Yan, and himself—these six would be relatively likely to pass the trials of the City of Slaughter.
Yufeng and Aoshi Luo also had a certain chance.
With all eight forming a team to clear the City of Slaughter dungeon together, they should be able to speed up the process considerably.
If possible, they could even bring along that old fellow and see if it would further accelerate the clearance.
At this point, Xiao Lin had not only forgotten the specific rules of the City of Slaughter—he had even begun scheming against the God of Shura himself.
God of Shura, you wouldn't want something to go wrong with your inheritor, would you?
"Brother Lin, what are you thinking about?"
At that moment, Xiao Wu came over to Xiao Lin's side, her small face full of boredom as she asked.
Ever since Tang San had briefly said goodbye to her, Xiao Wu had fallen into this state of finding everything dull.
Seeing Xiao Lin wearing a sly smile, the curious Xiao Wu immediately came over to seek some amusement.
"Nothing much."
Xiao Lin didn't dare talk openly about matters concerning the God of Shura.
Just in case the God of Shura found out and decided to mess with him.
"Brother Lin, you can't fool me. Whenever you smile like that, you're definitely plotting to mess with someone."
Xiao Wu narrowed her eyes with a faint smile, then sat down beside Xiao Lin and asked curiously,
"Brother Lin, tell me. I promise I won't tell anyone else."
Xiao Wu was bored out of her mind. Without Third Brother around, she had no energy.
Hearing her say that, Xiao Lin found it even harder to bring up the God of Shura. He could only divert the trouble elsewhere, shifting the target from the God of Shura to someone else.
"I have an idea. Even though Xiao San isn't here, we can't slack off in our cultivation."
"Brother Lin, what idea do you have?"
Xiao Wu was instantly excited. If it involved picking fights, she loved it most.
Xiao Lin's lips curled as he said calmly, "With our current strength, there are actually very few opponents who can truly challenge us. But we can challenge other academies—go and 'kick their doors.'"
"Kick their doors?"
"That's boring. How could people from other academies possibly beat us?"
Xiao Wu immediately lost interest. It seemed Brother Lin couldn't come up with anything fun either.
With that, Xiao Wu quickly ran off.
Watching her leave, Xiao Lin let out a tense breath.
He had just promised Xiao San to take care of Xiao Wu—how could he let her go cause trouble? Luckily, he had reacted in time.
As for teams from other academies, it wasn't necessarily true that they were weaker than the Royal Battle Team.
For example, the Spirit Hall's Golden Generation—their overall strength was not inferior to his own team.
However, the idea Xiao Lin had thought of earlier was definitely not this. When he had intended to divert trouble earlier, his target had actually been Shrek.
More precisely, the teachers of Shrek Academy.
Those teachers' soul power levels were far above theirs. If used as training opponents, they would be the most suitable.
But after recalling their grievances with Yu Xiaogang, Xiao Lin quickly gave up on the idea.
What a pity. If only he could trick Zhao Wuji from Shrek over.
Xiao Lin secretly shook his head. In the end, out of boredom, he took out the Xuanming Stone and began to observe and study it in detail.
Under Xiao Lin's "fiery golden eyes" perspective, besides its original stone-like appearance, the Xuanming Stone also contained the presence of soul beast soul power, soul beast flesh, and the skeletal structure of a soul bone.
Although it wasn't a soul bone, Xiao Lin immediately thought of the possibility of using fossils to create soul bones.
Aside from the fact that they could be absorbed like soul bones, the Xuanming Stone matched soul bones in almost every other aspect.
First, the Xuanming Stone contained soul power. Second, its key components were soul beast flesh and bones.
One had to know that even when a soul beast was hunted to obtain a soul ring, not all of the power within its flesh and bones would be fully absorbed.
In other words, a soul beast's corpse was itself a treasure.
As for how the Xuanming Stone formed, Xiao Lin wasn't sure—but he did have some understanding of fossils.
Think about it: if one took the corpse of a hunted soul beast and turned it into a fossil, then utilized the soul power within it, at the very least it would be a form of recycling.
Moreover, even if a soul beast's corpse couldn't become a fossil, turning it into petroleum wouldn't be bad either.
As long as there was still sufficient soul power inside, that was enough.
Xiao Lin's thoughts raced rapidly, and before he realized it, he had come up with yet another devious idea.
However, he quickly returned to the main topic of fossil soul bones.
What needed to be considered now wasn't how to turn soul beast corpses into fossils, but how to turn fossils into soul bones.
If he could find fossils like the Xuanming Stone—preferably fossils formed from the corpses of powerful soul beasts, such as dragons or Xuanwu-type beasts—
Given how powerful those soul beasts were, even after becoming corpses, there was a high probability they wouldn't be weathered away, and would instead form fossils.
Consider how fossils endure through long geological ages, accompanied by sedimentary lithification… eventually forming ancient biological fossils.
Under the pressure of external forces—earth's pressure and gravity—the fossils would be crushed and compressed. The quality of the soul power contained within them would definitely be extremely high.
Xiao Lin suspected that the Shi brothers' martial soul awakening had relied on this very kind of high-quality soul power.
And as everyone knew, the higher the quality of soul power, the more it could facilitate a soul master's martial soul awakening.
For instance, Tang San's awakening of the Blue Silver Emperor required the assistance of other Blue Silver Kings, whose soul power was brimming with vitality.
And the second awakening of body-type martial souls—wasn't it also achieved only after one's own strength increased and the quality of soul power rose high enough?
The quality of the Xuanming Stone was already sufficiently high, and the quality of fossils from dragons, phoenixes, or Xuanwu would be no worse.
Using such high-quality soul-power fossils to create soul bones had an extremely high probability of success.
The next step would simply be to ensure that the fossil contained enough soul power, then make that soul power rotate and compress into a soul core.
But then again, if one was going to use fossil soul power, why not just directly use a soul beast corpse?
For example—a hundred-thousand-year soul beast corpse.
Unlike the Thunder Emperor Dragon sacrificing itself to him, when an ordinary hundred-thousand-year soul beast was hunted, its corpse would still remain.
Wouldn't it be more convenient to make use of the vitality and soul power of a hundred-thousand-year soul beast corpse?
In fact, during the compression process of most fossils, their soul power—under the effects of gravity and attraction—would likely be absorbed by the fossil with the greatest mass.
Just like how, in the ocean, there are regions of heavy water denser than ordinary seawater.
Fossils followed the same principle. Xiao Lin believed that the Xuanming Stone in his hands was no exception.
The soul power within the Xuanming Stone was something he suspected to originate from a Xuanming Turtle—a creature with Xuanwu bloodline.
When massive amounts of soul power were compressed into the fossil with the highest mass, then finding such a fossil and creating a fossil soul bone was entirely possible.
As for how fossil soul power could form a soul core, Xiao Lin felt that perhaps he could ask the two Dragon Kings for help—handcrafting one.
The possibility of fossil soul bones existed; theoretically, it was feasible, and there were indeed powerful figures capable of handcrafting soul cores.
But with that much effort, it might be better to simply find a high-level soul beast instead.
Unless Xiao Lin could find a fossil with an extremely high level of soul power.
Soon, Xiao Lin shared his thoughts with the two Dragon Kings, who immediately fell into deep contemplation.
"Xiao Lin, if you truly can't obtain a soul bone with sufficient age, you really could give this a try."
The Ice Dragon King admitted that Xiao Lin's unconventional idea was worth attempting.
"I remember that the Mountain Dragon King transformed into mountains and continents. If you really can't find a suitable soul bone, you could search for the mountains formed from the Mountain Dragon King and find a 'fossil' there to make a torso bone."
The Fire Dragon King thought for a moment and, for once, did not refute the Ice Dragon King.
"Yes. The Mountain Dragon King's attributes are also very suitable for a torso bone."
…
Listening to the two Dragon Kings, Xiao Lin had another thought: if he eventually obtained a torso bone, perhaps the Mountain Dragon King's fossil could instead be used to make an external skeletal soul bone—a full set of armor.
If it could be made into an external soul bone, that would be even better—it would be a divine artifact.
Coincidentally, the Xuanming Stone was ice-attributed. Perhaps he could let the Ice Dragon King try first, to see whether a fossil soul bone could be made into an external soul bone.
(End of Chapter)