Douluo: I am a biologist, awakening the weapon spirit?

Chapter 161 Niyu
Tang San looked at the money pouch that Ning Rongrong handed him with a helpless expression.

"We really don't need that many."

"Why don't we give the extra ones to these giant onions? Gold Soul Coins are metal too, right?" Xiao Wu suddenly suggested.

"Huh? Would they be interested in gold soul coins?" Tang San asked in surprise.

"You'll know once you try." Ning Rongrong took out a gold soul coin from her money bag and went to the Thousand-Year Steel Serpent she was cooperating with.

Instantly, the thousand-year-old steel serpent stared intently at the golden soul coin in front of it.

Ning Rongrong tentatively fed it a gold soul coin, which it swallowed whole without hesitation.

The other Onix also looked over, but they didn't make a move, perhaps because Steelix holds a special position in the group.

Ning Rongrong was delighted to see that the Steelix had eaten the Gold Soul Coin.

She was wondering how to thank the giant steel snake, but now she finally found a way.

Ning Rongrong took out bags of gold soul coins from her Purple Star River and poured them all onto a large rock. In no time, the rock was piled high with gold coins.

A rough estimate suggests there are approximately over a thousand.

It's not that Ning Rongrong only has this much money, but rather that this is all the gold soul coins she has; the rest of her money is in her card.

Upon seeing this small pile of gold, the millennium-old steel serpent first gently touched Ning Rongrong's hand with its forehead to express its gratitude, and then began to feast on the gold beside it.

"To be honest, this is the first time I've ever seen a soul beast that eats gold soul coins," Zhao Wuji said with a strange expression, arms crossed.

Flander, standing nearby, looked heartbroken. "Using gold soul coins as food is too extravagant."

Although he was greedy for money only to facilitate the establishment of schools, he was not truly a miser.

But seeing so many gold coins being eaten by the Steelix, he still felt as if his heart was bleeding.

But what Chen Feng was thinking about at this moment was something else entirely: the Pokémon with the same name as these Steelixes had a Shiny variant, and this Shiny variant seemed to be gold.

Furthermore, the variants of Onix also appear to be golden.

If this Steelix continues to feed on Soul Coins, will it really slowly turn into a golden, Oddish Steelix?

After thinking about it, Chen Feng felt that this possibility was not high. It wasn't that he thought the giant steel snake would definitely not mutate, but that there simply wasn't enough gold to serve as its food.

This time, it was because they met Ning Rongrong, a wealthy young woman, who gave them so many gold coins to thank Steelix for its willingness to cooperate.

Who will be willing to invest so much in the future? Unless these giant onyx find a wild gold mine, there might be a slight chance that they will evolve into different colored individuals.

After Ning Rongrong and Tang San rewarded the Great Rock Serpent clan with gold coins and iron essence respectively, Chen Feng and his group continued their journey.

As a forbidden zone for life, the soul beasts in the Death Desert each have their own territory.

The Onix clan is considered to be among the upper-middle level in the Death Desert, and their territory is naturally quite large.

Therefore, Chen Feng wondered if the giant onyx snakes could give them a ride, which would save them a lot of time.

The Steelix leader did not refuse the request. It led several Onix to take Chen Feng and his group, successfully delivering them to a place not far from their target mountain.

This is already the edge of the Onix's territory; they can only take us this far, otherwise it will be beyond their boundaries.

After bidding farewell to their leader, Steelix, Chenfeng and his group embarked on their mountain climbing journey.

Along the way, they encountered attacks from some aggressive soul beasts, as well as some relatively docile ones.

As they approached the foot of the mountain, most of the spirit beasts they encountered were fire-attribute.

As they got closer to the summit, other types of spirit beasts occasionally appeared.

"Huh? What are those things flying over the cliff edge?" Bai Chenxiang suddenly asked, pointing to a spot.

The crowd looked in the direction she pointed and saw several white, clump-like objects floating in the sky above the cliff.

“That’s a wind slime,” the master said.

"What is a Wind Slime?" Bai Chenxiang asked, somewhat puzzled.

The answer to her question came from Chen Feng: "Slimes are a very unique type of soul beast. They have a jelly-like body and can mutate into slimes of corresponding attributes under the influence of external elemental energy. These wind slimes should have mutated from ordinary slimes under the influence of wind attributes."

"Oh~ So fire slimes can be produced in fire elemental environments, and water slimes can be produced in water elemental environments?" Bai Chenxiang asked.

"Yes."

"It doesn't seem to be a very powerful soul beast."

“No, you’re wrong about that. I think a Wind Slime would be a very suitable soul beast for you,” Chen Feng said, shaking his head.

"Huh? Why?" Bai Chenxiang asked, puzzled.

"Because slimes, as a type of spirit beast, have a unique characteristic: even if part of their body is shattered, they can actively absorb the broken pieces back and slowly reassemble themselves to their original state," Chen Feng explained.

Seeing that Bai Chenxiang still seemed somewhat bewildered, Chen Feng reminded her:

Do you remember my advice regarding your third soul skill?

"Brother Feng, are you suggesting I acquire the soul skill to retrieve the Wind Feather?" Bai Chenxiang understood somewhat.

“That’s right, the characteristics of Wind Slime will most likely allow you to obtain this kind of Soul Skill.” Chen Feng nodded.

Bai Chenxiang thought about it for a moment and felt that Chen Feng's idea was worth a try.

"But are there any wind slimes that are the right age for me?" she asked, looking at the white lumps.

“Yes, the biggest one is a wind slime that's about 1,600 years old,” the master said, pointing to one of the white balls.

Slimes are not powerful soul beasts, so they can't grow to a very high age. It's practically impossible for a slime to grow to ten thousand years old; a thousand years is already the maximum.

"Then I'll go and bring it back." Flander sprouted wings and flew over the cliff.

A short while later, he returned, dragging a large white ball of flesh.

Everyone looked into his arms and saw that the big white ball had faint cloud patterns on it and a pair of semi-transparent eyes, making it look rather cute.

"So cute!" Bai Chenxiang's eyes seemed to sparkle.

Flander placed the Wind Slime on the ground and then asked Chen Feng, "Can a soul beast like this be used with the Ring-Extending Technique?"

The wind slime, placed on the ground, stood there blankly, showing no intention of running away.

Bai Chenxiang was immediately reminded. She reached out and poked the soft wind slime, saying:

"Brother Feng, your Ring-Turning Technique seems to require communication with a Soul Beast, but it doesn't seem very smart."

"If the ring-expanding method doesn't work, we'll just use the ring-hunting method," Ma Hongjun said nonchalantly.

"No! How can you hurt something so cute?" Bai Chenxiang said, pointing at the adorable wind slime. "How can you bear to do that to it?"

Ma Hongjun looked at the wind slime on the ground, which looked like a big ball, and for a moment he really couldn't bring himself to be ruthless.

In the past, when people had no choice but to hunt for rings, they naturally had to harden their hearts.

For example, when Oscar acquired his third spirit ring.

But now that we have the new option of the circumferential method, there's no need to do things that make us feel conflicted.

So Ma Hongjun shrugged and said:

"I can't bring myself to do it, but you need a spirit ring. Are we going to have to find one again?"

Bai Chenxiang looked at Chen Feng with pleading eyes, hoping that he could come up with a solution that would satisfy both sides.

Chen Feng did indeed have some ideas, and he looked at the Wind Slime and said:

"After learning about the existence of soul beasts that can mutate with the environment, I have been thinking about the reasons for their mutations. My initial guess is that their soul power is easily affected by external factors, and they themselves cannot resist this interference."

"The key to the Ring-Extending Method is to communicate with the soul beasts through soul power. Communication is just a means to achieve this goal, not the result. So I think we can give it a try first. Soul power communication is also a kind of external influence."

In fact, after the topology method was officially perfected, he began to consider whether the application scope of the topology method could be expanded.

The prerequisite of mutual cooperation between the two parties is still too restrictive. Chen Feng wondered if he could also include those soul beasts with relatively weak self-awareness within the scope of the Ring Expansion Technique.

At first, Tang San tried to fuse his soul power with the Jade Bamboo but failed because the nearly eight-hundred-year-old Jade Bamboo had no self-awareness and could not mobilize its soul power to fuse with Tang San's.

At that time, Chen Feng did not think of the path of "if you want to take, you must first give", and did not try to actively input soul power into the body of this soul beast that had no self-awareness.

Now he needs to fill in this gap and see if the Ring Extension Technique can be applied to soul beasts with weak self-awareness.

If possible, there might be a way to deal with some of the lower-level spirit rings.

Bai Chenxiang understood Chen Feng's meaning and immediately beamed with joy.

"I'll give it a try, and hopefully I'll succeed."

She really didn't want to hurt such an adorable little white ball of fluff. If the attempt failed, she would prefer to try to find other soul beasts.

"Well, don't be too anxious. The mutation of slimes is a relatively slow process. If you haven't succeeded by the time Old Ma's spirit rings are all finished, then the experiment will be considered a failure," Chen Feng advised.

They had used up a lot of energy climbing the mountain, and it was getting dark, so they decided to rest for the night and climb to the summit again at dawn the next day.

This can minimize the possibility of accidents.

Even under the best-case scenario, finding a soul beast and Ma Hongjun absorbing a soul ring tomorrow would probably take a whole day, so Bai Chenxiang still has plenty of time.

When night fell, everyone found a relatively flat spot to set up camp, and then, just like the night before, they went into their tents.

Bai Chenxiang sat on her bunk, facing a large, white wind slime. She was using both hands to channel her soul power into the wind slime, attempting to use the Soul Ring Extraction Technique to obtain a soul ring from the wind slime.

The Wind Slime did not resist Bai Chenxiang's actions at all; the entire white sphere displayed a Zen-like indifference, letting Bai Chenxiang do as she pleased.

This was Bai Chenxiang's first time using the Ring-Tracing Technique. At first, she had some trouble figuring it out, but because the Wind Slime and she both belonged to the Wind element, their soul power had a high compatibility. So, gradually, Bai Chenxiang successfully transferred her soul power into the Wind Slime's body and participated in the Wind Slime's soul power circulation.

At this point, success is already a foregone conclusion.

Ma Hongjun was on night watch outside. He didn't dare to light a fire because of the darkness around him, and just listened intently to the sounds around him.

After a while, a flash of light suddenly appeared on the horizon, which caught Ma Hongjun's attention.

He looked into the distance and saw the flame flying towards him, which immediately made him tense.

Fortunately, the flame was not heading towards the camp, but towards the summit of the mountain. It flew to a certain point on the summit and then disappeared.

As it flew closer, Ma Hongjun realized that the flame was a bird-shaped creature. This gave him a sudden inspiration, and he quickly noted down the last place where the bird-shaped creature disappeared.

Ma Hongjun's goal in coming here to obtain his third spirit ring was to get a fire-attribute spirit beast that could fly, in order to solve the problem of his inability to fly.

That bird-shaped soul beast just now seems to meet the requirements. Although I don't know if the age limit is suitable, it's always good to write it down.

Nothing happened that night, and the next day, good news came first from Bai Chenxiang.

She succeeded!

Looking at the three soul rings, two yellow and one purple, on Bai Chenxiang's body, and the still adorable wind slime beside her, Chen Feng felt a surge of joy in his heart.

Bai Chenxiang's success demonstrates that the Ring-Extending Technique is applicable to soul beasts that lack self-awareness or have a weak sense of self.

The lifespan of these types of spirit beasts is generally not very high, which means that the target of the Ring Expansion Method is no longer limited to intelligent spirit beasts.

There are two types of soul beasts that can benefit from the Ring-Extension Technique: one type has a weak enough self-awareness to resist, and the other type has enough intelligence to cooperate.

These are roughly two extremes, and those that are neither here nor there, those that cannot communicate and instinctively resist the cyclic extension method, represent the blind spot in the scope of application of the cyclic extension method.

Solving this blind spot is probably not a simple matter.

Regardless, the expansion of the scope of application of the Ring-Turning Technique is a good thing, giving human Soul Masters more options.

"Xiangxiang, what is your third soul skill? Is it what I speculated before?" Chen Feng asked.

“That’s exactly right,” Bai Chenxiang said with a grin.

She first used her first soul skill, Wind Feathers, to throw several feathers towards the open space in the distance.

Then her third spirit ring lit up, and the feathers returned to Bai Chenxiang's body at an extremely fast speed.

(End of this chapter)