Qin Ming, a Negative Example

The rebellious disciple returned to the side hall without rushing to study the Secret Method.

To him, it was merely a small matter of adjusting and organizing his own soul skills, practically instinctive.

Instead, he began a new round of Martial Soul research.

It was not that Lin Hai had grown lax in cultivation; daily gains had their limits.

Besides, he had only just broken through level thirty. If he immediately threw himself into another round of grueling cultivation, he would be like a Corporate Slave from his previous life who returned from overtime, washed up, collapsed into bed, then opened his eyes to another exhausting day.

If there had been no choice, that would have been one thing. Survival was the foundation of life. But Lin Hai had a choice, and it was not as though he lacked the means...

Life needed a little variety. As night settled in and sleep had yet to arrive, two people naturally had their own amusements; if one was alone, the happiness doubled.

Yet Lin Hai was limited by his age. Though willing, he lacked the ability, and his ways of passing the time were few:

Teasing Little Fox, giving Yan a new hairstyle, and immersing himself in all kinds of research and study.

With peerless comprehension, he could naturally do as he pleased.

Mm, perhaps one day he could take his teacher to the Divine Realm to herd sheep...

Ahem!

Back to the point. Today's topic was: how could one accurately determine whether a spirit master could successfully absorb a particular spirit ring?

Lin Hai had a clear understanding of this: Yu Xiaogang's theory on the upper limit of Spirit Ring Absorption years was utter nonsense!

The reasons were obvious:

Spirit masters differed vastly in individual talent and experience. Even among spirit masters of the same rank, their physiques, Spiritual Power, and willpower could be worlds apart.

Spirit ring quality also varied enormously. Even spirit beasts of the same age could produce spirit rings with vastly different levels of ferocity and resentment due to differences in species, manner of death, and other factors.

Attribute compatibility was equally important. The degree to which a Martial Soul's attributes matched those of a spirit ring concerned both life and death, as well as future development.

Water and fire clashed. Forcing absorption would result in crippling injuries at best and death at worst.

Even if the attributes did not conflict, insufficient compatibility would inevitably affect a spirit master's absorption limit and future development.

Moreover, Lin Hai firmly believed that if the attributes did not match, the Martial Soul and spirit ring attributes would inevitably wear each other down.

Take Tang San, for example. A Poison attribute spirit ring would inevitably weaken the Life attribute of Blue Silver Grass. Conversely, the Martial Soul's Life attribute would also inevitably weaken the Poison attribute.

Furthermore, the accumulated years of earlier spirit rings—especially the previous spirit ring—directly formed both the foundation and the shackles for absorbing higher-aged spirit rings later on.

"..."

With so many variables intertwined and layered together, the maximum age of spirit ring each spirit master could endure naturally differed enormously.

In his previous life, Lin Hai had also pondered this question long and hard. Yet after racking his brains, he ultimately achieved nothing—

It seemed that aside from relying on certain special opportunities or "cheats," there was simply no universal and reasonable standard for judgment.

A quantitative formula? Physique, Spiritual Power, the characteristics of different spirit beasts... How could these variables be converted into calculable data?

Feeling bones and checking pulses might roughly estimate a spirit master's absorption potential, since even bone age could be determined that way. But it certainly would not be precise enough.

Not long ago, Lin Hai recalled something about "injections" from his previous life: some medicines required skin tests for allergies before use.

That flash of insight left him enlightened. Could spirit beast blood, fluids, and other tissues be used for a similar "energy pre-adaptation test"?

The core question was this: for the same spirit beast, was there some stable correlation between the energy characteristics contained in its blood and fluids and the energy of the spirit ring it ultimately formed?

If so, then once that correlation was deciphered, it could provide a basis for matching different spirit masters with the absorption limits of particular spirit beast spirit rings.

Then, taking into account factors such as fluctuations in resentment caused by a spirit beast's possible manner of death, and leaving a small number of years as a buffer...

Would that make it possible to approach infinitely close to the absolute maximum age different individuals could endure?

To that end, Lin Hai had already dispatched people to the Soul Hunting Forest to collect large quantities of blood and fluid samples from target spirit beasts.

Even that old man Golden Crocodile and that old fellow Guang Ling had volunteered to go.

One wanted to repay Lin Hai, while the other simply wanted to have fun...

At the same time, he gathered detailed information on spirit beast traits and requisitioned several death-row prisoners who had reached the critical point of Soul Power as the first batch of "volunteers."

Logically speaking, even if this research succeeded, it would bring no benefit to Lin Hai himself—his path had long surpassed mundane limitations.

In his view, its value to the entire continent was also rather limited.

What this continent lacked least were people content with what they had. How many were satisfied with the mediocre progression of a ten-year first ring, a hundred-year third ring, and a thousand-year fifth ring?

Take Qin Ming as an example. This man could be considered fairly talented, but because Shrek had no qualification to participate in the Spirit Master Competition, he would presumably graduate in a hurry at level forty.

Lin Hai extrapolated what would happen next: Qin Ming might travel alone until he reached level fifty.

By then, perhaps he would lack powerful companions to help him hunt a ten-thousand-year spirit beast, yet be unwilling to turn back and ask Flender and the others for help... Or perhaps he simply would not find a compatible ten-thousand-year spirit beast anytime soon...

Then settling for a thousand-year spirit ring as his fifth ring would be perfectly reasonable.

Yet that very choice revealed that he did not possess such a burning obsession with reaching the pinnacle of the spirit master path.

What if it were that bastard Tang San instead? He would probably rather have his own wife sacrifice herself to become his fifth ring than settle for a thousand-year one!

Of course, he had his mother abdicate for him and his clan offer itself up as tribute.

As for this life... Heh, what was the greatest significance of the Origin Seal?

Back to the point. With so many spirit masters on the continent willing to accept "low-spec" spirit rings, could they all truly be doing so because they had no other option?

This showed precisely that those who truly possessed the courage, capital, and desire to risk their lives challenging spirit rings at the limit of their years were ultimately few and far between.

Seen this way, Gang Zi's absurd theory might have claimed relatively few lives over the years.

Besides, Lin Hai firmly believed that the key to convincing people was not how exquisite a theory was, but whether its author had succeeded himself. How could a failure write a book on success and sell books and courses?

He ought to write one instead: "A Veteran Soul Grandmaster Teaches You How to Do Everything Backward!"

In the end, people had strengths and weaknesses. It had always been so.

What was wrong with spirit masters absorbing spirit rings with somewhat lower years? Even so, spirit beasts... would eventually be unable to keep up with the demand...

The person who had truly driven Lin Hai to research this was Yu Xiaogang.

What he wanted was to rip away the fig leaf of Yu Xiaogang's "Ten Core Competencies of Martial Soul," completely expose this "theory master" for what he was, and shove him back into the place where he belonged.

Collecting one hundred and twenty Gold Soul Coins a year until Lin Hai beat him to death—that was the only destiny Yu Xiaogang deserved in this life.

As for why he was targeting Yu Xiaogang? Lin Hai could only say: if you transmigrated and did not torment Yu Xiaogang, you generally would not get many subscriptions...

Of course, he truly could not find even half a reason not to target him.

Yu Xiaogang, Tang San, Xue Beng... In his eyes, these three "famous teachers and outstanding disciples" were the three people on Douluo Continent who most deserved to die. Even dying too smoothly would not satisfy his anger.

"You three, just wait." A cold glint flashed through Lin Hai's eyes. "Master Hai is about to make his move from afar."