Inside the dormitory of the Sun Moon Royal Soul Engineering Academy, a soul guidance cannon rested on Lin Xiao's desk. It was roughly the size of an adult's arm, its rear end still open, revealing the intricate soul guidance arrays within.
In Lin Xiao's hand, the Life Engraving Knife danced up and down, metal shavings drifting from his fingers and falling onto the table, glistening like scattered stardust under the light.
"So beautiful… truly too beautiful. I never imagined such a metal could exist."
Beside Lin Xiao, the soul "Feng Shen" floated restlessly, his gaze never leaving the Star Soul Ingot in Lin Xiao's hand.
Ever since he began learning necromancy from Electrolux, the souls that had retained some of their consciousness from life had become much more lively.
Especially Feng Shen, whom Lin Xiao had only recently begun communicating with after starting necromancy. Because he had never undergone fewer of Lin Xiao's crude and forceful modifications compared to the others, he was noticeably more animated. If not for his semi-transparent body, he would seem almost no different from a living person.
Lin Xiao was beginning to understand why Electrolux held the methods of the Holy Spirit Cult in such contempt.
Compared to a soul like Feng Shen, who felt almost alive, the resentful spirits of the Holy Spirit Cult—filled only with hatred and rage—were truly incomparable.
And this was still far from the full extent of necromancy.
Lin Xiao put away the engraving knife. His left hand swept across the table, and as his left arm glowed faintly, the metal scraps on the desk instantly vanished without a trace.
Seeing this, Feng Shen drifted closer. "You really created this metal material yourself?"
Lin Xiao sighed helplessly. "You're already like this—why would I lie to you?"
"But I do have to thank you for this. If you hadn't bought all the locust wood cores back then, I would never have accidentally refined this metal."
Feng Shen, however, didn't seem to care much about that incident. After becoming a soul, his interests had become simpler and purer—he was clearly far more fascinated by the alloy Lin Xiao had created.
"So that's how it was. No wonder, during your assessment at Mingde Hall, I always felt something was missing from your soul guidance device."
"Either you sacrificed precision, or you sacrificed control. But with this alloy that can carry souls and mental power, you can use your martial soul's ability to have souls control the soul guidance device for you."
"What a genius idea. And the foundation of all this is the alloy you made—fusing two completely different metals to create a material that combines both of their strengths, and even giving birth to new properties."
Listening to Feng Shen, Lin Xiao glanced down at his left arm again. If not for his soul bone's ability to refine metals, that coincidence might never have happened.
Moreover, this soul bone had saved him a lot of effort when making soul guidance devices. After years of nurturing it, while it might not compare to a true 100,000-year soul bone, the gap was no longer vast.
"I remember now," Feng Shen muttered to himself as Lin Xiao looked at his arm. "No wonder, when I used to make soul guidance devices, even if they were the same design, using different materials would result in different power outputs."
"I thought it was just a matter of compatibility between the soul guidance arrays and the materials, but if different materials can form alloys… does that mean the materials I chose back then might have had the potential to fuse?"
"And… is this fusion limited to metals? Have you tried fusing metal with non-metal? Or alloy with alloy?"
As he spoke, Feng Shen reached out to touch the metal pieces on the table, only for his hand to pass right through them. Only then did he remember he was a soul, and he froze in place.
Seeing this, Lin Xiao picked up the metal for him and turned to comfort him. "Alright, we still have plenty of time. In the future, we can experiment slowly. But for now, help me perfect my current idea."
"Sigh—" Feng Shen let out a long sigh. "It's a pity that before you, no soul engineer ever thought to revolutionize things starting from the materials themselves, before even engraving the soul guidance arrays."
"Otherwise, my Sealing God Platform could have gone even further."
Hearing this, Lin Xiao suddenly paused and set down the metal in his hand. "Speaking of the Sealing God Platform… is your soul guidance device really capable of granting a soul master a new martial soul?"
"Yes," Feng Shen nodded, "but the chance is extremely slim."
"A soul ring and a martial soul are different. To fuse a new martial soul, the soul beast trapped in the Sealing God Platform must cooperate willingly. Otherwise, even if the fusion succeeds by force, it could cause all kinds of conflicts with the soul master's original martial soul."
Lin Xiao began to understand.
If the being sealed in that Sealing God Platform really was a 100,000-year soul beast, then under strong external pressure, there might have been a small chance of it forming a new martial soul.
However, what was sealed inside was the Snow Empress, who had cultivated for 700,000 years. To turn the Snow Empress into a martial soul—let alone how to withstand her 700,000 years of soul power or make her cooperate willingly—the extreme ice attribute alone was not something an ordinary soul master could bear.
Twin martial souls require both to be of similar quality. For a soul master without an existing martial soul of comparable quality, accepting an extreme-attribute martial soul would be nothing short of fantasy.
Shaking off those thoughts, Lin Xiao gently shook his head, took out a piece of Starlight Sapphire, and sighed softly.
Ever since returning from the Holy Spirit Cult headquarters, he had known that the trip to the icy sea was unavoidable.
Since he couldn't refuse, the only choice was to prepare as much as possible before setting out.
He had already improved his original self-propelled soul guidance cannon, fully upgrading it to a level 7 soul guidance device, but it was still far from the quantity he had in mind.
Moreover, beneath the sea, he would face not only soul beasts but also the environment itself.
Although the Great Elder had said he would handle it, Lin Xiao wouldn't feel at ease without his own preparations.
This world had all kinds of soul guidance devices, but Lin Xiao had never seen one that could convert soul power into breathable air. Creating a soul guidance device that allowed breathing underwater from scratch was no simple task.
Fortunately, this world also had something completely unreasonable: storage soul guidance devices.
The Starlight Sapphire in his hand, also known as the Treasure of Space, possessed rare spatial power and was the foundation of most large storage soul guidance devices.
He still hadn't figured out how to convert soul power into breathable air, but using the principle of storage devices to "store" air from the surface in advance was far simpler.
While discussing with Feng Shen and designing arrays, the light from the illumination soul guidance device in Lin Xiao's dormitory remained on until very late into the night.
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Here are the chapters for today (づ￣3￣)づ╭～
"The novel is already finished on Patreon."
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