Whale Rubber
Although the Raven caused Zhou You some trouble, it also helped him become known to everyone in the academy.
Despite the infamy, it gained the right to freely enter and leave the academy more smoothly than Zhou You had expected, and was not attacked because of its unknown origins.
As a result, Zhou You was able to communicate frequently with the Star Dou Great Forest.
Zhou You communicated not only with Xiao Wu, but also with Ah Rou, and even more with the latter.
As a Transformed Soul Beast, Ah Rou has traveled almost the entire continent in search of her husband over the years, and has been to many places.
She not only mingled in human society, but also visited other Soul Beast forests, even went to the Vast Sea City, and went out to sea.
Because of her unique identity, she has interacted with humans and Soul Beasts from all over the world, including Sea Soul Beasts.
To express her gratitude to Zhou You for saving her life, Ah Rou recently had Raven deliver a precious gift.
Inside the carriage, Zhou You saw Yan dozing off again in the seat, so he took something out of his bag.
It was an irregularly shaped, dark golden crystal, only the size of a fist, with a hard texture and a warm luster. If you smelled it carefully, you could also detect a faint fishy smell.
--[Whale Rubber], a timeless quality.
This is a treasure that Ah Rou obtained from Sea Soul Beast. It is a special gelatinous substance that condenses inside the brain of a whale-type Soul Beast, and it is extremely rare.
Zhou You had a deep impression of this thing; it was the thing that took Huo Yuhao's virginity in "Douluo Continent II: The Peerless Tang Sect".
This substance is used to enhance physical fitness and broaden meridians, comprehensively strengthening the physical attributes of low-level Soul Masters. The side effect is excessive Yang energy, which can easily cause excessive internal heat and dryness in the Lower Dantian after consumption.
In fact, when Zhou You was first admitted to the hospital, he tried to search for Whale Rubber. Compared to other rare and precious materials that appeared in the original work, Whale Rubber was the easiest to obtain.
However, this is a marine product and is not commonly found in inland areas.
Although Soul Masters have not yet discovered the true value of Whale Rubber, precisely because of this, no one specializes in reselling it, making it extremely rare in the current era.
Zhou You was originally prepared to give up and instead seek the immortal Immortal Herb, but unexpectedly, he found a way out and obtained it.
According to Ah Rou's explanation, the true value of Whale Rubber is currently unknown. This is because Whale Rubber is only useful at the low-level Soul Master stage. Once Soul Master reaches the Soul Elder, the value of Whale Rubber decreases significantly.
Secondly, Whale Rubber itself is extremely difficult to obtain. It is a substance derived from the brains of whale-type Soul Beasts, most of which are Sea Soul Beast of the sea and are by no means benevolent.
Take the most common Evil Spirit Orca as an example. This ferocious Sea Soul Beast is a social species. Their ecological niche in the sea is equivalent to that of hyena packs on land. They are apex predators, and ordinary people are not qualified to hunt them; they are only fit to be prey.
The Whale Rubber that can actually work can only be produced by whales that are over a thousand years old. Thousand-Year Rank Sea Soul Beasts are already quite dangerous species, and only Sea Soul Masters can hunt them.
So here's the question: Under normal circumstances, if Sea Soul Master actively hunts Evil Spirit Orca, their goal would undoubtedly be Soul Ring; would they specifically seek out Whale Rubber?
When you're already worried about being ambushed by enemies while absorbing Soul Ring, how can you possibly be distracted by anything else?
These realities have led to the fact that Whale Rubber remains rare even in this day and age.
Before the first person to "eat the crab" appears, it is impossible for humans to devote too much energy to Whale Rubber.
However, while Whale Rubber is rare for humans, it is not so rare for Sea Soul Beasts.
For example, the Demon Soul Great White Shark and the Evil Spirit Orca species are mortal enemies. They often fight with the Evil Spirit Orca and devour its flesh.
Therefore, Sea Soul Beasts are clearly more aware of the value of Whale Rubber than humans, but they won't tell Soul Masters.
Only a Transformed Soul Beast like Ah Rou would have the opportunity to learn such a secret.
However, this thing is of little use to Ah Rou; it is mainly effective against human Soul Masters.
Considering that Zhou You is currently at the Soul Grandmaster stage and only has one last chance to take Whale Rubber, Ah Rou immediately sent this item to him, hoping to lend him a helping hand.
Zhou You sighed, even though the Soft Bone Rabbit and the Sea Soul Beast are completely unrelated, they can communicate more easily just because they both belong to the "Soul Beast" camp.
This stirred something within him.
Although he hadn't finished reading "Peerless Tang Sect," he knew that in the setting, there was another continent on Douluo Star named "Sun Moon," whose civilization mainly focused on developing Soul Tools.
He suspected that all the Soul Tools unearthed on the Douluo Continent were essentially of the same origin as the Soul Guidance Technology there.
If we apply the "continental drift" theory from Blue Star, it's possible that the Sun Moon Continent and the Douluo Continent were once one entity, and a powerful Soul Guidance Technology civilization must have existed on the entire supercontinent at that time.
After all, the fact that Soul Tools could be unearthed on the Douluo Continent proves that this continent once had a thriving Soul Tool Technology, but it declined for unknown reasons, and the Soul Master community subsequently rose to prominence.
However, after searching through all the ancient books and classics, he found no information about the Sun Moon Continent.
Let's assume that the continent is very far from the Douluo Continent, so far that current navigation technology is insufficient to support ships crossing the ocean to establish a connection with another continent.
What about the Sea Soul Beast?
For Sea Soul Beasts, this endless ocean is almost entirely smooth sailing. Do they know that on the other side of the world, there exists another continent?
Considering that Soul Beasts can survive for a very long time once they overcome the heavenly tribulation, Zhou You believes that Sea Soul Beasts may have a clearer understanding of the entire planet beneath their feet than humans.
He suddenly felt an urge to talk to those Sea Soul Beasts and figure out the problem.
But he was soon forced to calm down by the realities of life.
"Sigh, I still need a higher level of cultivation." Zhou You sighed. If he had the strength of Soul Douluo right now, he would really like to try traveling around the world.
While Soul Douluo might not be able to fly across the endless ocean, capturing Sea Soul Beast a mount or using it to pull a ship might be feasible for circumnavigating the world.
He secretly wrote down this plan, waiting to realize it one day.
But for now, let's study Whale Rubber first. We have to eat one bite at a time, and walk one step at a time.
Zhou You stared at the Whale Rubber in his hand, pondering how to make the most of it.
After all, he had some medical knowledge and a smattering of Alchemy Method. Whale Rubber, in the field of Traditional Chinese Medicine, can be considered a medicinal ingredient.
Since it is a Chinese medicinal herb, it can be processed using Traditional Chinese Medicine theories.
Traditional Chinese medicine emphasizes the proportions of herbs, requiring the principles of principal, assistant, adjuvant, and guide herbs, as well as the harmony of the seven emotions. By understanding the principles of combining herbs in traditional Chinese medicine, it may be possible to better harmonize the medicinal properties of Whale Rubber and eliminate its side effects.
The same applies to Immortal Herbs. The way the main characters in the original story chewed on peonies was the biggest waste of rare medicinal materials. He was almost certain that a lot of the medicinal effects of those Immortal Herbs were wasted.
Although the world has changed, Zhou You believes that the theories of Traditional Chinese Medicine are still applicable.
In fact, he had previously conducted experiments with Feidian, and the poison pills he concocted were essentially a practical application of traditional Chinese medicine theory.
Based on Feidian's feedback, he became convinced that his idea was correct. Now there was only one problem: he needed to design a new formula using this Ten-Thousand-Year Whale Glue as the main ingredient.
This is a challenge for him.
He had to complete this task before his Soul Power Level reached level 30. After all, without any bottlenecks, his Refining Qi was always very fast; any slower and he'd be Soul Elder...
Fortunately, no one could know what he was thinking at that moment, otherwise countless people would have wanted to strangle him on the spot.
The Douluo Continent will not tolerate such arrogant people!