From the Soul Motion Machine onwards, the Mechanized Douluo

Chapter 278 The Starry Sky. How long has it been since I last gazed upon the Milky Way? [Question Chapter]

"This [Hunting Soul] ten-thousand-year-old head soul bone is like a pillow being delivered to someone who's just about to take a nap."

In Chen Hong's private research room, Chen Hong lay on a chair, looking at the ten-thousand-year-old soul bone in his hand, his eyes flashing with a strange light.

"The Soto Spiritual Network appears as a surface to me, but to the Big-Headed Doll it's just points and lines. The Big-Headed Doll is completely unable to perceive the situation within Soto City. However, now, the perception field formed by the [Hunting Soul]'s ten-thousand-year-old head soul bone skill [Hunting Sensing] perfectly compensates for the Big-Headed Doll's deficiency."

The "plugins" Chen Hong mentioned regarding the Soto Mental Network were various "special soul skills" that could add various auxiliary functions to the Soto Mental Network.

For example, the Soul Bone of the Hunt can add a "map" function plugin to the Sotho Mental Network, allowing netizens within the Sotho Mental Network to use this map plugin to consume their mental traffic and request the Sotho Mental Network to clear the fog of war for them.

"Of course, this function actually uses some war functions. The mental network serves as a springboard, and the functional plug-ins serve as auxiliary soul skills. When needed, it can remotely grant warriors within the area various special soul skill abilities, such as healing, detection, and acceleration. The prospects are quite good."

"So we need to find a way to get the [Soul of the Hunt] Soul Bone online as soon as possible, since we've already taken out the best target, the Cave Spider."

Chen Hong looked at the [Soul of the Hunt] soul bone in his hand, feeling somewhat conflicted. He hadn't expected the Cave Spider to drop a soul bone for him. If he had known this, he would have been kinder to it.

"Big-Headed Baby said there's still a bit of the remnant soul of the Cave Demon Spider inside the Soul Bone, so let's try to nurture it slowly. If you're lucky, I'll feed you with the Spirit Essence."

Currently, there's only one way to cultivate Bone Spirits: a Soul Master with strong spiritual power merges with a Soul Bone, then uses various channels to transfer their soul into the Soul Bone. Finally, the Bone Spirit breaks free from the Soul Master's corpse and lives a second life. Chen Hong is now trying a second, entirely new method: turning Soul Masters into Soul Beasts. Theoretically, this method seems to simplify some processes, making soul migration much easier. However, the souls of Soul Beasts are weak, and unless nourished with spiritual essence, Chen Hong can't think of any way to make a Soul Beast Bone Spirit grow rapidly.

After dealing with the [Soul of the Hunt] soul bone, Chen Hong placed the ten-thousand-year-old soul bone on a shelf and left [Huang] the task of "taking good care of her".

(Huang: Her???)

Just as God found Adam a companion, Chen Hong also found a partner for [Huang], hoping they could multiply like Adam and Eve to create humankind. Hmm, that seems a bit of a stretch.

This is giving me a headache. I got tricked by my own "contract," and now my head's a bit off.

hum~

The brilliance of the sage shone once more, and the light of wisdom rose from Chen Hong's head.

Shaking his head, Chen Hong began to carefully examine the Spirit Hall files that Qian Daoliu had given him, looking up information on various well-known special spirits in history.

As Chen Hong became more serious, time flew by in his hands, and in the blink of an eye, he had spent half a month poring over the files of the Spirit Hall.

So engrossed in his work that Chen Hong didn't even attend the launching ceremony of the Sea Soul, a Yellow Jade-class guided steel armored ship from the Soto Shipyard.

Aside from receiving food from Ning Quan every day, Chen Hong was completely immersed in his world of reading dossiers. While reading the dossiers given to him by Qian Daoliu, he also sorted out information on various strange martial spirits that had appeared in history. In a relatively scientific way, Chen Hong organized the dossier information given to him by Qian Daoliu.

How many files were in the space stone that Qian Daoliu gave to Chen Hong? Qian Daoliu himself didn't even know. He practically used this top-grade space stone to move all the files about martial spirits from the Spirit Hall to Chen Hong.

Other Spirit Hall Soul Masters: My lord! What are we supposed to watch then?!

Qian Daoliu: Anyway, you guys don't usually watch it.

The other Spirit Hall Soul Masters were speechless for a moment, unable to refute it.

Although Qian Daoliu provided a lot of information, Chen Hong has already built the Soto mental network. He directly stores all the information into the processing core of [Huang]. Theoretically, there is no upper limit to the storage space of [Huang], as long as its mental power is strong enough.

After [Huang] filtered and organized the information, Chen Hong directly stored all the organized information into his brain through mental connection. Then, relying on his powerful mental strength, he spent a total of half a month absorbing all the information given by Qian Daoliu.

If Qian Daoliu knew that Chen Hong had absorbed all the information he had given him in just half a month, he would definitely exclaim that it was monstrous!

Because Qian Daoliu basically sent Chen Hong 10% of the Spirit Hall's collection of books! If Chen Hong were taken to Spirit City, wouldn't he only need to spend less than half a year to absorb all the various messy books that the Spirit Hall had collected over thousands of years?

It's important to understand that as the Spirit Hall's collection of books grew, successive Spirit Hall popes stopped reading them much. Back then, Yu Xiaogang burrowed into the Spirit Hall's library—no, its rice bin—and spent several years reading only a portion of it, abandoning a large number of miscellaneous books.

"Phew, all done."

In the research room filled with manuscripts, Chen Hong slowly closed a thick, brand-new book. The giant-headed doll [Huang] flew around, assisting Chen Hong in organizing materials and classifying various manuscripts.

Chen Hong rubbed his dark circles, his eyes sparkling, his black pupils reflecting an eerie light under the soul power lamp.

"Senior Qian Daoliu is also throwing books at me randomly, including all sorts of erotic novels. I've found no less than a hundred of them. Unfortunately, in my sage state, all I can say is: utterly tasteless."

Chen Hong got up and stretched his muscles, his whole body making a popping sound like beans exploding.

"No wonder people in this world don't like to read. There isn't even a single person to organize the contents of books. Thousands of years of messy records have piled up, making all the Soul Masters who want to read feel intimidated."

Chen Hong slapped his palm on the brand-new, thick book on the table, titled "Martial Soul Classification".

"There are four categories in total: plant martial souls, beast martial souls, weapon martial souls, and body martial souls. People in this world like to fuse plant martial souls with beast martial souls. This is not an isolated case, which means that soul beast martial souls are one category."

"Weapon-type Martial Souls are one type."

"The original spirit is one type."

"No, weapon spirits should be considered transitional spirits. In other words, spirits in this world have only two sources: spirit beasts and the physical body!"

After being bombarded with information from Qian Daoliu's books, Chen Hong found that his perspective on the world had changed.

"If soul beasts can be explained by their ability to transform into human form, then how do we explain their true form, which is humankind?"

"The people of this world cannot comprehend one thing: whether other living beings exist in this world."

"Although it's uncertain, in this world where even beasts can transform into soul beasts, soul beasts would need a reference point to take human form."

"In other words, the emergence of humans must have preceded that of transformed soul beasts. At the very least, soul beasts need a reference template for transformation, as intelligent beings cannot imagine things they have never seen before."

"Combined with the strange soul tool civilization of this world," Chen Hong subconsciously looked up at the ceiling, his gaze seemingly transcending time and space at that moment.

"Therefore, all the secrets lie beyond the heavens!"

"Oh, starry sky, how long has it been since I last looked up at the Milky Way?" Chen Hong muttered hysterically, staring at the ceiling.

"I thought I was the original body, but it turns out... I don't have a martial soul at all."

"Who could have imagined it? Who could have imagined it?"

".Lanjia"

(2440-2500 free words: Online request: Brothers, should I unveil the mystery directly in the next chapter, or stop here and show Chen Hong's alienation with facts? This will give two different impressions. Of course, those of you with big pectoral muscles should have already guessed it, right?)

(End of this chapter)