Douluo Continent: My Martial Soul is the Black Dragon, I am the Lord of the Gods

……

Yu Xiaogang was prepared and bowed, saying, "Your Majesty, I have a plan. We can send a delegation to the Spirit Empire under the guise of 'peace talks'! On the surface, it will be to discuss peaceful coexistence, but secretly, we can take the opportunity to contact the Sun Moon Empire's personnel in Spirit City and try to establish contact!"

"Peace talks? Sending a mission?" Xue Ye frowned. This was tantamount to negotiating with a tiger, and the risk was extremely high.

“Yes, Your Majesty. This is currently the only way to break the deadlock,” Yu Xiaogang affirmed. “The delegation members must be absolutely reliable, and must be exceptionally intelligent and adaptable.”

Xueye's gaze swept downwards. Crown Prince Xuebeng was the sole heir; he absolutely could not be allowed to take any risks. The imperial family members… he didn't trust them, fearing that some might use this opportunity to collude with the Martial Soul Empire, or even usurp power.

His gaze finally settled on Yu Xiaogang: "Grand Preceptor... This matter concerns the survival of the empire, and only a person of great talent can handle it. I intend for you to personally serve as the chief envoy of the delegation, representing the Heaven Dou Empire to the Martial Soul Empire!"

"No!" Before Yu Xiaogang could answer, Tang San immediately stepped forward, his tone urgent. "Your Majesty! My teacher is advanced in years. The Spirit Empire is a den of dragons and tigers, fraught with danger. How can we let him risk his life? I am willing to go in his place!"

Xueye looked at Tang San. This young Lan Haowang was exceptionally talented and powerful, indeed an excellent candidate, but after all, he was a member of the Haotian Sect, not a direct descendant of the royal family...

Tang San noticed Xue Ye's hesitation and immediately added, "Your Majesty, I am not only proficient in combat, but also skilled in hidden weapons and mechanisms! I am confident that I can quickly grasp the principles of such novel things as soul tools! Even if I cannot obtain them openly, I... have a way to 'borrow' some of their techniques and bring the key technologies back to the Empire to help our Heavenly Fighting Army contend with Martial Souls!"

Upon hearing the word "borrowing," Xueye, as an emperor, instinctively frowned, feeling that this method was beneath the dignity of the empire and unfit for high society.

At this moment, Yu Xiaogang spoke up: "Your Majesty! Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures! The empire is now at a critical juncture of life and death. If we are bound by trivial matters, we may miss a golden opportunity! Tang San's words, though using extraordinary methods, have a pure purpose: the survival of the empire! This old minister believes that this method is feasible!"

He looked at Tang San, his eyes filled with trust and determination: "San, you are meticulous and strong enough, you are indeed the most suitable candidate. This journey is extremely dangerous, you must be careful!"

Tang San clasped his hands in a deep fist salute: "Rest assured, Master! For the Empire, for the Sect, Tang San would not hesitate to die a thousand deaths!"

Looking at the master and disciple before him, and then at Tang Xiao, the silent but resolute sect master of the Haotian Sect below, Xue Ye finally took a deep breath and made a decision: "Alright! Since that's the case... King Lan Hao, Tang San, listen to my decree!"

"Chen is here!"

"I hereby appoint you as the special envoy of the Heaven Dou Empire, fully responsible for peace talks with the Spirit Empire! And... act according to circumstances, and do everything you can to make contact with the Sun Moon Empire, to secure a glimmer of hope for our Heaven Dou Empire!"

"Your subject obeys! I will certainly not fail in my mission!"

……

Wuhun City, the core area of ​​the Soul Guidance Research Institute.

After a year of tireless, round-the-clock research, guided by Xuanming's key insights into the structure and stability of soul ring energy, the top soul masters from the Sun Moon Empire finally made a breakthrough.

A soul tool device, about half the height of a person, stood quietly in the center of the laboratory. It was made of rare metals and its surface was engraved with extremely complex energy circuits, emitting a gentle and stable soul power fluctuation.

As a researcher guided a white spirit ring, freshly detached from a ten-year-old wind baboon and still not yet dissipated, to the top of the device, the core crystal at the top of the device glowed faintly, generating a gentle suction that slowly drew the white spirit ring into it.

Inside the crystal, a faint white light steadily illuminates, indicating successful storage.

"Success! The ten-year spirit ring storage is stable!" "The hundred-year spirit ring test has also begun... Energy fluctuations are within a controllable range, storage successful!"

A suppressed cheer erupted in the laboratory.

Although the current "Soul Ring Storage Device" can only stably store ten-year and one-hundred-year Soul Rings, and the success rate for the more violent one-year Soul Ring is less than 30%, and it cannot hold ten-thousand-year Soul Rings at all, this is undoubtedly a huge leap from zero to one!
This proves the feasibility of storing spirit rings!
The next step is to continuously optimize materials, improve circuits, and increase storage capacity and stability.

Meanwhile, deep within the Papal Palace, Xuanming was immersed in another research project.

A faint, luminous energy stream floated before him, invisible to the naked eye but perceptible only to the divine sense.

This is precisely the power of faith that arose in the hearts of some beneficiaries and people who prayed for peace over the past period of time, because the soul tools he brought improved some people's livelihoods, and because he used absolute violence to deter the two great empires and objectively prevented the spread of large-scale war.

Under Poseidon's guidance, he learned that the power of faith is a very special spiritual energy that originates from the beliefs of all beings.

In the mortal realm, it has countless uses: it can help top experts break through the limit barrier of level 99, it can share some of the pressure when undergoing the tribulation of godhood, and it can even, like Poseidon, accumulate a massive amount and condense the corresponding godhood!
Poseidon achieved the position of sea god and ascended to the realm of gods by relying on the ocean worship accumulated over thousands of years.

However, the power of faith has a much smaller effect on beings who have already become gods. Further advancement beyond the god level depends more on the understanding and control of one's own laws.

Poseidon admitted that when he ascended, he had just entered the threshold of a first-level god. After countless years of hard work, he reached the peak of a first-level god, but he was still unable to step into the realm of a god-king.

In the early stages, divine positions are a powerful aid, but once the deities embark on their own paths, they can become a limitation.

Moreover, in order to maintain its stability and combat power, the main gods are usually not allowed to leave the divine realm at will, unless they cause a great disturbance, like the angel god and the Rakshasa god in the past, which affects the peace of the divine realm, in which case they are allowed to descend to the mortal realm.

The nature of faith power is also diverse. There are positive beliefs that pray for peace and redemption, such as sea gods and angels, as well as negative beliefs that worship evil thoughts and killing, such as Rakshasa gods.

Ultimately, it is a versatile spiritual energy that can be guided and utilized to enhance cultivation, condense divine positions, extend lifespan, and even... condense soul rings!
Combined with the breakthrough in the Soul Ring Storage Device, a grander and more radical idea gradually became clear and took shape in Xuanming's mind.

Soul rings should not be consumables.

Since mortal-made soul tools cannot perfectly store high-level soul rings, why not use the power of faith, a higher-level energy, to build a system?
He could try to create a special "container" with pure faith power at its core, or directly construct an invisible "soul ring repository" based on a faith network.

When a Soul Master needs a Soul Ring, they can remotely bestow it through a ritual or prayer, by divine will, based on the actual situation of the person praying, by calling upon a suitable, stored Soul Ring from the "Soul Ring Treasury".

When a Soul Master's life comes to an end, or when they voluntarily give up, the Soul Rings they are given will not dissipate. Instead, they can be recycled by this belief system and put back into the "Soul Ring Treasury," waiting to be needed again.

In this way, spirit rings will no longer be one-time consumables that can only be obtained by hunting spirit beasts, but will become a "public resource" that can be recycled!
Soul beasts will no longer need to be hunted because of their soul rings. They can coexist with humans, and in the future, they may even be able to establish new cooperative relationships, such as voluntarily contributing their soul rings at the end of their lifespan.

Human Soul Masters have also been freed from the fate of having to risk hunting Soul Beasts to advance in order to advance, and their cultivation path will become safer and more controllable.

This idea is extremely ambitious, involving a deep intervention and reconstruction of the existing world rules, and its difficulty far exceeds that of creating a spirit ring storage device.

It requires a massive amount of faith power as its basic energy source, an extremely high level of control over the laws to maintain the system's operation and fairness, and, more importantly, a complete and universally accepted system of rules. (End of Chapter)