Douluo Continent: I possess astonishing wisdom as I control energy!

Kong Ming'an explained earnestly.

His goal remained unchanged: to continuously strengthen the Snow Empress, enabling her to deal with all threats beyond those wielded by gods.

He even tried to cultivate the Snow Empress into a god, so that she could completely eliminate his worries.

As for Hyotei...

Admittedly, as a 390,000-year-old soul beast, it would be a lie to say he had no designs on Ice Emperor, but that was due to his emphasis on "materials" and "samples."

However, judging from Xue Di's tone, he was quite certain that Xue Di's perception of him was completely different from his own opinion of Bing Di.

Snow Emperor, something's very wrong!

"That's my thought process. Do you understand?"

After Kong Ming'an finished explaining carefully,

To this, the Snow Empress remained fixed on him, a slight ripple in her eyes. After a moment of silence, she asked again:

"Really?"

"..." Kong Ming'an had a strange headache. "It's true."

"..."

Xue Di remained silent, her eyes still filled with doubt.

Other matters are fine; as long as Kong Ming'an explains, she won't have the slightest doubt. But this is the only thing that matters.

Thoughts began to form, but after a moment, Xue Di seemed to have made up her mind. She sighed softly, and her eyes returned to calm.

With a gentle lift of her hand, she collected all thirty strands of Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice Marrow in front of her, then stood beside Kong Ming'an as always, seemingly no different from usual.

Kong Ming'an glanced at Xue Di, somewhat unsure of what she was thinking, but seeing her calm demeanor, he ultimately refrained from asking further.

With a wave of his hand, Kong Ming'an carefully collected the remaining seven pieces of Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice Marrow, intending to use them as materials for future research. At this point, all the gains from the Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice Cave had been collected.

With a gentle wave of his hand, the spatial portal opened, and the two stepped through it, returning to the undead demiplane.

As soon as they stepped out the door, the two could see a huge hall in the distance, and inside the hall were rows of spatial portals leading to any city in the Douluo Continent.

One after another, figures dressed in the uniforms of the Mingmeng Chamber of Commerce stepped in and out of the door, bustling about yet orderly, forming the information resource network of the Mingmeng Chamber of Commerce.

Soon, the two arrived at a spatial portal leading to Snowfield City.

Xue Di paused slightly, turned her head to look at Kong Ming'an, as if she wanted to say something, but in the end she turned around and stepped into the door, her figure disappearing.

Kong Ming'an stood there, watching the door where Xue Di had disappeared, a slight change in his gaze.

During this time, he had grown accustomed to the feeling of Xue Di always being by his side, and now that she was gone, he felt a strange emptiness beside him.

Ugh, I feel insecure.

Ever since the assassination attempt on him by Da Ming and Er Ming, he's felt unsafe without a top-tier fighter by his side.

Shaking his head, Kong Ming'an cast aside these inexplicable emotions, decisively turned around, and prepared to return directly to Mingdu.

It's safer to stay home. I can also ask Mr. Yi for his opinion and have him calculate the feasibility.

However, after walking only a few steps, not far away, Orange, dressed in a fitted uniform, emerged from the spatial portal ahead, and her gaze naturally fell upon his figure.

Orange's eyes brightened slightly, and she quickened her pace to stand in front of Kong Ming'an, speaking without any hesitation:

"Guild Master, the soul beast you requested has been captured!"

Chapter 74 Children, the threshold for cultivating magic is low, come and learn!

In the Hall of Offerings in Mingdu, within a top-tier laboratory, Kong Ming'an stepped out of the spatial portal.

The moment he stepped out, Kong Ming'an sensed the auras of the barriers on his left and right sides: one was holy and deathly still, while the other was scorching and powerful.

On the left is the secret chamber where Elder Yi secluded himself to research "using the 'Ring Fusion' method to increase the age of Soul Rings."

On the right is the laboratory where my grandfather, Kong Deming, led a group of level nine soul masters to tackle the project of fusing the natal soul tool with body cultivation.

Clearly, his current laboratory, sandwiched between the two and with a maximum level of security, was specially arranged by his grandfather and Elder Yi.

Slightly relieved, Kong Ming'an took out the "Beast Sealing Platform" that the oranges had given him and placed it on the experimental table in front of him.

As you look down, you can clearly see the sealed soul beast.

Its face was ferocious, with protruding fangs. It resembled a dog in appearance, but its limbs were thick and its body was covered with silvery-white scales that emitted a strange soul power fluctuation.

"It really is a Silver Elite Beast."

Kong Ming'an easily confirmed the target.

This Silver Spirit Beast's cultivation level is roughly 35,000 years. If there are no surprises, it's the same one that appeared in the original story.

Without any hesitation, Kong Ming'an released the beast-sealing platform, and then, the instant the platform was released, he swiftly ended the life of the still somewhat bewildered Silver Spirit Beast.

A deep black spirit ring naturally appeared. Kong Ming'an took out the "Soul Binding Tool," specially used to cleanse the remnants of souls on spirit rings, and precisely peeled the remaining soul of the Silver Spirit Beast from the spirit ring.

He then sat down cross-legged and began absorbing the spirit rings.

The process went incredibly smoothly, without any unexpected incidents. Just a few hours later, Kong Ming'an successfully absorbed the essence, and then immediately entered a brief period of seclusion.

This process involves clearing away a large amount of useless memories belonging to the Silver Elite Beast from the spirit rings, retaining only the purest "Imprint" spirit skill modules.

Fortunately, unlike most other soul beasts that possess multiple soul skill modules, and whose numerous modules are often mixed with a large amount of useless memories that are extremely time-consuming to clear, this one...

Since the Silver Beast essentially only has the ability of "Imitation," it only needs to clear out this single soul skill module, and then it can simply clear out the others without any further thought.

It took Kong Ming'an a day to clear away the numerous useless memory fragments belonging to the Silver Elite Beast from the new soul ring, leaving only the purest "Imprint" soul skill module.

After finishing that, Kong Ming'an took a deep breath and took out a yellow hundred-year soul ring.

This is a soul ring inscribed with a soul skill module called "Snowfall" by the Snow Empress.

He infused his soul power, using the soul ring in his hand as a one-time consumable to activate the "Snowfall" soul skill module contained within it.

In an instant, the unique aura of extreme ice and snow belonging to the Snow Emperor descended.

The temperature inside the laboratory suddenly dropped, and countless pure white snowflakes instantly condensed in the air, falling gently like a dream.

At that very moment, Kong Ming'an's spirit rings shone brightly, "Imprinting" was activated, and...

The rubbing was successful!

Having succeeded in the first step, Kong Ming'an did not pause at all. He then raised his hand and pointed to the side. The next moment, the chilling aura of extreme ice and snow erupted once again!

The temperature, which had been gradually rising, dropped again, and a chill permeated the surroundings. However, instead of condensing into snowflakes in the air as before, the energy transformed into a wisp of icy blue energy, quietly resting on his fingertips.

The ultimate ice and snow attribute that should have belonged exclusively to the Snow Emperor was now successfully mastered by Kong Ming'an!

"Success."

A smile appeared on Kong Ming'an's face.

As he expected, it was feasible to "imprint" soul skills to imprint other attribute soul skill modules, thereby indirectly constructing and mastering the corresponding elemental energy observation while using soul skills!

The principle of "imprinting" lies in analyzing and recording the energy structure frequency and operating mode of the target's soul skill, and then copying it into one's own soul skill module.

This is equivalent to an alternative form of "learning" and "burning".

In the original novel, Huo Gua once made a copy of Xu Sanshi's "Mysterious Netherworld Replacement".

This serves as evidence that "imprinting" can also imprint the soul power attribute of a soul skill.

After all, if the attributes cannot be imprinted along with the spatial attributes, how can one perform "Mysterious Netherworld Replacement" without spatial attributes?

Of course, all of the above were initially just Kong Ming'an's conjectures. After all, without practical experience, any talk would be rather empty.

Now, Kong Ming'an has proven through practice that his conjecture was not wrong at all!

Soon, Kong Ming'an took out more spirit rings.

In an instant, a dazzling array of soul skills of various attributes were triggered and used within the laboratory, and then one by one they were imprinted and mastered.

A moment later, his spirit rings were exhausted. Kong Ming'an stretched out his hand, and lightning, flames, water droplets, wind blades, and dust appeared simultaneously in his palm. They intertwined with each other, yet did not disturb one another, creating a strange sense of harmony.

At this point, Kong Ming'an had mastered all the basic elemental energies.

Kong Ming'an's lips curled up slightly as he tried out the "elementalization" of various different elemental energies one by one.

After practicing like this for a while, Kong Ming'an slowly stopped, deactivated his elemental transformation, sat back down on the chair, and lowered his eyes, lost in thought.

"Besides helping me grasp more different types of energy, the application of 'rubbing' has many other uses. Or rather, grasping different types of energy is just a side effect."

"At the moment of 'imprinting,' the soul skill module of the attribute imprint will analyze and replicate the imprinted object. This process can help me master the imprinted soul skill module very quickly, accelerating the process of my self-condensed soul skill module."

"This should only apply to me personally, if I can replicate the 'imprint' onto the soul tool."

Kong Ming'an's eyes unconsciously brightened slightly.

Nowadays, the technology for flushing out spirit rings—removing remnants of the spirit ring, a large amount of useless memories, and spirit skill modules in one go—is quite mature.

Prior to this, this technology was mainly used to flush out the spirit rings dropped by the dead Soft Bone Rabbits, turning them into blank spirit rings, which could then be used as a tool to carry other spirit skill modules.

However, this technology can also be applied to Soul Masters!

Using the Soul Ring Cleansing Technique, the Soul Master's existing Soul Ring is directly cleansed and transformed into a blank Soul Ring. Then, the Soul Skill Module is imprinted onto the blank Soul Ring using the Imprinting Soul Guidance Device!

This makes it easy to edit soul rings and soul skills!

The person whose soul skill is being imprinted can freely choose and combine them to create a combination that best suits their needs.

Even if a Soul Master is dissatisfied with their own Soul Skill, they can directly "reset their stats" and then re-imprint a Soul Skill that they are satisfied with!

"Because it is directly washed into a blank spirit ring, the spirit ring's carrying capacity is fully released. In essence, it can carry multiple spirit skill modules in a single spirit ring, just like a 'magic cultivator,' and the method of use is basically the same."

"So, this can be considered an alternative, low-barrier 'Dharma cultivation'?"

Chapter 75 Self-condensation and Rubbing

"It's not just about lowering the bar; it's also about deteriorating the system."

After a moment's thought, Kong Ming'an came to a conclusion.

The ability to arbitrarily "reset" skill points, freely imprint the required soul skills, and even have a single soul ring possess multiple soul skills.

It may seem no different from orthodox "Dharma practice," but in reality, this method has obvious drawbacks.

The soul skill modules generated through "imprinting" have a soul power load far exceeding that of naturally generated soul skills, approximately three to four times the latter.

For example, if a spirit ring has a carrying capacity of 100, and a self-condensed "Fireball" spirit skill module has a carrying capacity of 10, then the carrying capacity of an imprinted "Fireball" spirit skill module may reach 30 or even 40.

Based on this calculation, the self-condensing soul skill module allows one soul ring to carry ten "Fireball" soul skill modules.

Furthermore, the fact that the creator can condense the soul skill module on its own proves that the creator has a sufficient understanding of the "Fireball" soul skill module. The creator may also be able to further optimize the soul skill module and reduce the load.

However, if it's an imprint, a spirit ring can generally only hold two to three imprinted spirit skill modules. Furthermore, because it's an imprint rather than self-formation, the spirit ring owner's understanding of the spirit skill itself is insufficient, and they can basically only use the imprinted spirit skill modules to a functional level.

Similar to the use of spirit rings by spirit masters in the traditional spirit master system, but more complicated than the traditional one, it is similar to the difference between fully automatic operation, system-assisted operation, and fully autonomous operation.

Furthermore, imprinting has limitations; the more advanced and complex the soul skill, the greater the load the imprinted soul ring needs to bear.

Some advanced soul skills, such as Xue Di's "Emperor's Palm" and "Emperor's Sword," are currently beyond Kong Ming'an's ability to replicate.

The imprinting failed because the load it would bear exceeded the ring's capacity.

This also explains why the Silver Beast couldn't imprint the soul skills of a 100,000-year-old soul beast; it's because the beast's size couldn't bear the load of the imprinted soul skills, thus causing the imprinting to fail.

"Compared to the 'Dharma Cultivator' who is already quite familiar with the construction of the Soul Skill module and can forge their own path, the 'Imprint' is more like a transitional comfort zone."

"It might be relatively difficult for a Soul Master to directly transition from their traditional Soul Master system to 'Magic Cultivation,' but first 'Imprinting' and then attempting 'Self-Condensation' is certainly one possible approach."

However, it seems that many people might simply stay in this transitional comfort zone.

It is foreseeable that in the future "magic cultivation" system, those that can condense and optimize their own soul skill modules may gradually form a "self-condensing" faction and become the true foundation of "magic cultivation".

Those who use the somewhat opportunistic method of rubbing to become "Dharma practitioners" may form a "rubbing" faction.

Essentially, it's roughly the difference between a "mage" and a "magic master".

Kong Ming'an's thoughts began to stir slightly, and he extended his ideas further, thinking of even more things.

For example, "rubbing" has an unparalleled advantage for armies that require a high degree of uniformity.

Imagine that all soldiers' soul skills can be standardized and unified, and that they can "reset" their stats and re-imprint other soul skills at any time according to tactical needs.

Within a small team, the Soul Skills of various units, such as assault, defense, command, support, and healing, are combined to achieve perfect tactical coordination and switching!

"The feasibility is very high, and there aren't many technical difficulties. The main challenge is replicating the soul skill's effect onto the soul tool, but I can see the energy structure, so that's not a big problem."