Hearing Zhang Yang's question, Wang Mumu did not look confused. Instead, he thought for a moment before speaking. "Village Chief, I'm afraid this will be very difficult. Do you think that copying the Battle Runes on my body and then drawing them with demonic blood would be enough to replicate them?"
"Isn't that how it works?" Zhang Yang was stunned. That really had been what he initially thought.
"Of course not. Actually, before I obtained this Mountain Monster Battle Tattoo, I thought the same thing as you, Village Chief. Everyone would think that way. But things aren't that simple. The Battle Runes you can see now account for less than twenty percent of the complete Battle Runes."
"From what I can sense, the power of these Battle Runes flows through my blood. They're engraved in my bones, my flesh, and even here—" Wang Mumu pointed at his own head. "Everywhere is imprinted with the mysteries of these Battle Runes. I may never understand those mysteries in my entire life, but that won't affect my ability to release them perfectly. It's a kind of power I can't describe. So, Village Chief, you should understand now, right? These Battle Runes aren't something you can draw just because you want to."
Wang Mumu's words left Zhang Yang stunned for a long while. Only then did he admit that he had thought things too simply. At first glance, it had seemed easy for Wang Mumu and the others to obtain Battle Runes—all they needed was compatibility. But in truth, the Village Building Order had played an enormous role.
If Battle Runes could be replicated so easily, then the deer demon was so clever that it would have solved this problem long ago.
"Go back and rest for now. I'll think this over carefully."
After giving the order, Zhang Yang closed his eyes and began to ponder. Of course, he would not give up so easily. Even a fool could see how important Battle Runes and Talismans were.
Everything he possessed now had been carved out with one life after another. It could not be replicated.
And what would happen in the future? He had no idea. Including the new recruits, he now had fewer than eighty people under his command. Was he supposed to keep using human lives to hack out a path to survival?
Or was he supposed to pin his hopes on all the enemies he encountered in the future having the strength of Level 1 Azure Wolves, Level 5 Red Eagles, or the Spider Lord and Great Horned Deer Lord?
Impossible. There would be countless Village Building Order binders in this Fantasy World. Every bound village chief would initially encounter low-level little monsters. Then, as they continued expanding their territory and time passed, those village chiefs were destined to run into one another. They would fight and kill each other. The dead would become soil, while the survivors would grow even stronger.
That was the most straightforward principle in the world.
And that wasn't all. Could this Fantasy World really be covered entirely by an endless Primeval Forest?
Impossible, right? What if this seemingly perilous Primeval Forest was merely a beginner's village?
Finally, what if the Village Building Order binders had not all appeared in this world at the same time? Or what if some village chiefs died midway, resulting in a situation where Village Chief A had already completed twenty years of operation, Village Chief B had only lasted ten years, and Village Chief C had just logged on?
That would be terrifying, because it would create an incomparably brutal war between humans and machines.
Therefore, Zhang Yang had to find a way to accumulate an advantage ten times, dozens of times, or even hundreds of times greater than his opponents if he wanted his village to survive the 280-year cutscene.
Based on all these reasons, based on the 981 predecessors of Zhang Yang's who had died without leaving intact corpses, and based on the fact that the code of Earth Civilization had already been deciphered by nearly a quarter, he could be one hundred percent certain of how cruel and terrifying this world—or rather, the many worlds formed by the Village Building Orders—would be!
He could not develop according to fixed patterns of thought. Nor could he hope that his unknown enemies would give him enough time to quietly grow. He had to seize every opportunity to become stronger and solidify every foundation he had, regardless of the cost. Well, except for selling his soul.
After a long while, Zhang Yang suddenly opened his eyes and took one unit of wolf demon blood from the Village Building Order's space. It was roughly one hundred milliliters, wrapped in an invisible air sac. This was an effect inherent to the Village Building Order's space, perfectly ensuring that materials would not spoil.
"The Village Building Order's description of wolf demon blood says: contains a trace of demonic energy and can be used to draw Talismans and Battle Runes."
"From this sentence, I can come up with three hypotheses."
"Hypothesis One: If Talismans and Battle Runes are manifestations of some kind of power, and the source of this power is the demonic energy contained in demonic blood, then I can simply find a way to purify this demonic energy. If I draw some random ghostly scribbles on anything, would that turn them into Talismans and Battle Runes? Obviously not. Hypothesis One doesn't hold."
"Hypothesis Two: If the most important things in drawing Talismans and Battle Runes are technique and certain array patterns, then as long as I follow those techniques and patterns, they'll have their own rules, just like electronic circuits. Demonic energy would merely be a kind of energy like electric current. Could that be where the mysteries of Talismans and Battle Runes lie?"
"Hypothesis Three: The demonic energy in this world can't all be the same, because there are also differences in compatibility. Therefore, there can't be any unchanging drawing rules. But could it work like this? When dealing with ordinary demonic energy, the drawing rules are standardized, like electronic circuits. But when dealing with special demonic energy, the drawing rules must be modified according to the changes in that demonic energy."
"Conclusion: Since I don't know how to draw Talismans and Battle Runes, and no one has taught me the rules for drawing them, can I reason backward and tailor drawing rules according to the range of variation in demonic energy? After all, logically speaking, demonic energy must have existed before the drawing of Talismans and Battle Runes. I'm merely taking an old road now."
"Then there's only one problem before me. How do I purify the demonic energy from demonic blood, and completely master its changes and properties?"
Zhang Yang asked and answered himself. The answer was obvious: naturally, he would use the Soul Force Field. Within the Soul Force Field, it was as if he were in a world completely controlled by him. Even if he was not a god, he was certainly a false god!
Acting the moment he thought of something had never been Zhang Yang's style, but now, it was as if he had been wound up. He did not even consider whether he should slack off and rest for a while before immediately beginning his experiment!
The Soul Force Field was released instantly and steadily maintained a diameter of three meters. Zhang Yang found controlling the field increasingly effortless. Unfortunately, the Soul Force Field had no proficiency display, so he did not know whether he could advance through such skilled manipulation.
"Take one unit of wolf demon blood? After confirmation, the Village Building Order's space will no longer provide containment support."
A message appeared. It was a prompt from the Village Building Order, and Zhang Yang selected confirm. Almost instantly, the wolf demon blood, which had seemed to be wrapped in an invisible air sac, dropped out. But after only 0.1 seconds, his Soul Force Field had perfectly enveloped it. This was no difficult feat. After all, he could make the five-kilogram Imprisonment Spear fly at the speed of sound within the Soul Force Field.
After enveloping the wolf demon blood, Zhang Yang immediately sensed its distinctive rancid smell and viscosity within his soul. He perceived it not through his nose or sense of touch. It was miraculous, but he did not focus on that. Instead, he mobilized soul threads and began separating the demonic blood more finely, just as though he were combing through wood fibers.
In the blink of an eye, the one hundred milliliters of demonic blood had been separated into ten thousand tiny droplets within Zhang Yang's Soul Force Field. That was already the limit of what he could accomplish. Fortunately, it was enough to complete the analysis he had conducted earlier, because his soul threads had begun touching something extraordinarily vibrant.
Though he had never come into contact with it before, and no information had ever told him what demonic energy was, Zhang Yang was still one hundred percent certain that this was demonic energy.
If he had to describe it vividly, it was like a bouncing ball that never stopped, or a powerful heart.
When Zhang Yang tried to capture those infinitely energetic things with his soul threads, he discovered that the difficulty far exceeded his imagination. Even after sending half his soul threads to capture them, he still gained nothing in the end. That thing was far too lively, bouncing around so much that it made him gnash his teeth in fury.
Helpless, Zhang Yang could only use all his soul threads. He no longer expected to capture all the demonic energy and instead focused on encircling a tiny strand.
After several rounds of encirclement, he finally captured it successfully. At the same time, the Soul Force Field could no longer hold and vanished directly. Zhang Yang collapsed to the ground, completely exhausted. The remaining demonic blood was wasted, spilling onto the ground, where it quickly returned to dust and soil.
At that moment, unexpectedly, information from the Village Building Order appeared.
"Successfully purified 0.1 units of low-level demonic energy. Can be sold."
"Quality: trash."
"Use the Golden Scales to further purify it into directly usable mana? Requires 1,000 energy points."
Before you continue