In the end, Su Mo arranged to meet Tang San at the school gates the next morning, then took Xiao Wu out of the academy to buy bedding and a few daily necessities.
After they returned to the dormitory, Xiao Wu took charge of making the beds.
Su Mo summoned the Infinity Gauntlet.
Using the debt of gratitude he had earned by gifting the ten-thousand-year whale glue, he exchanged it for a faint trace of the Golden Sacred Dragon bloodline within Luo Sanpao.
He had now collected three gems.
The Ice Gem was the purest, having condensed all of Tian Meng's ultimate ice.
The Wood Gem came next. Its ultimate wood had come entirely from the Blue Silver Emperor bloodline, though its sources were an unawakened Blue Silver Emperor martial soul and a Blue Silver Emperor who had already sacrificed once.
The Light Gem was the weakest, containing only a trace of an extremely incomplete Golden Sacred Dragon bloodline.
"Brother Sky Dream, only my Infinity Gauntlet still needs its first soul ring. What sort of soul beast do you think I should hunt?"
Su Mo communicated with Tian Meng through his thoughts.
"Your Infinity Gauntlet covers a lot of ground. It can advance to attack or retreat to defend, and it involves ultimate attributes too. What matters is which direction you want to develop it in, and what kind of soul skill you need."
Su Mo pondered for a moment. "In that case, we can rule out offense and defense. Ultimate attributes already provide both."
"There's actually another path," Tian Meng added, as though something had occurred to him.
"What?"
"Soul tools. Your Infinity Gauntlet itself falls under that category."
Su Mo paused. He really had never considered that angle before.
But then he sighed. "Soul tools are certainly powerful, but what soul beast could drop a soul skill related to them?"
"Uh..." Tian Meng was stumped.
"That leaves developing its ultimate attributes, but finding a soul beast with an ultimate attribute won't be easy." Su Mo frowned.
Tian Meng, however, had a different opinion. "The Infinity Gems come with ultimate attributes built in. You just need to absorb a soul beast with the corresponding attribute, and the soul skill will naturally carry that ultimate attribute."
"So my first soul skill should ideally come from one of the three attributes corresponding to my Infinity Gems, right?" Su Mo looked thoughtful.
"Save the ice-attribute soul ring for Bingbing!" Tian Meng reserved a slot.
"All right, all right, I'll save it for you. That leaves only wood and light."
"Light-attribute soul beasts are hard to find. The Soul Hunting Forest we're heading to might not have any, so why not absorb a wood-attribute soul ring first?" Tian Meng offered a sensible suggestion.
"Hey! Wait! I just thought of a very serious problem!"
Su Mo's pupils abruptly contracted.
"What?" Tian Meng was baffled.
Su Mo gave a bitter smile. "Whale rubber can increase the age of the soul ring we can absorb, but we're going to the Soul Hunting Forest tomorrow. That's where the empire raises soul beasts in captivity. It mostly has only ten-year and hundred-year soul beasts."
Tian Meng: "!!!"
A long silence fell over the Sea of Consciousness.
Neither the human nor the worm had noticed this issue all along.
But it really wasn't their fault.
Su Mo had only decided on the spur of the moment to absorb the whale rubber because Director Su had inadvertently revealed that he was a fire-type soul master.
Although he had raised the age limit of the soul ring he could absorb, the Soul Hunting Forest could no longer meet his needs.
After a long while, Tian Meng ventured, "How about we switch maps? The closest one to Nuoding City should be the Star Dou Great Forest, right?"
"No, no, no!" Su Mo rejected the suggestion.
"Froggy just stirred up trouble there not long ago. It won't be safe to go there now."
"Then what do we do?"
Su Mo shrugged. "Let's just go to the Soul Hunting Forest. Thousand-year soul beasts are scarce there, not nonexistent. Besides, I'm only looking for a wood-type or light-type soul beast."
"True enough." Tian Meng thought it over, and it really did make sense.
As for Xiao Wu, she didn't need to hunt for a soul ring at all.
"Too bad we're not strong enough. Otherwise, we could go hunt the Myriad Demon King directly. He has ultimate wood and would suit you perfectly."
"Heh. Go to sleep. You can have anything in your dreams."
Su Mo left the Sea of Consciousness. Seeing that Xiao Wu had finished making the beds, he washed up briefly, then fell into bed and went straight to sleep.
The Star Dou Great Forest.
On the shore of the Lake of Life.
An ancient, towering tree suddenly opened the eerie eyes scattered across his body. Vaguely, he sensed that someone harbored ill intentions toward him.
The Myriad Demon King had always trusted this intuition.
Someone must have set their sights on him.
Reviewing his memories of recent events, he recalled that the other ferocious beasts were still in the sleeping grounds, while the soul beasts in the Star Dou Great Forest posed no threat to him...
Suddenly, a black-robed figure surfaced in the Myriad Demon King's mind.
"How did I not think of it? That person appeared on the outskirts of the Star Dou Great Forest back then. Perhaps they were connected to that worm!"
The conjecture was admittedly far-fetched.
But it was the Myriad Demon King's last remaining lead.
If he still found nothing, he would have to return to the sleeping grounds to report. Who knew how those old fellows would mock his incompetence then?
The Myriad Demon King expanded his domain and summoned Da Ming and Er Ming.
Before long, a creature with a bull's head and a serpent's body arrived at the Lake of Life alongside a giant ape.
"My lord, what are your orders?" Da Ming lowered his bull's head and asked respectfully.
The Myriad Demon King raised a branch and pointed in the direction the black-robed figure had fled. "Keep following this direction. Search for a person in black robes, or any clues related to an ice silkworm."
"Yes," Da Ming and Er Ming answered in unison.
They then withdrew. Once they were far away, the two beasts exchanged a glance and couldn't help sighing. They had been run ragged lately, racing all over the forest just to find a worm.
Now they were being sent outside the forest to search as well.
When would this ever end?
They couldn't help longing for their leisurely days of old.
"Sister Xiao Wu, where are you? We really miss you! Boohoo..."
Early the next morning.
When Su Mo woke, he found Xiao Wu wrapped around him like an octopus.
"Are you sick in the head?" Su Mo irritably pushed Xiao Wu off him. "You squeezed in with me when we had one bed, and you're still squeezing in with me when we have two."
"Mmm..."
Xiao Wu rubbed her bleary eyes and yawned, her voice a little drowsy. "I can't sleep unless I'm next to you, big brother."
"What am I, your sleeping pill?"
Su Mo swung a pillow into Xiao Wu's head.
"Ah!"
In a fit of anger, Xiao Wu got angry for a moment and used her pillow to protest.
Only after fooling around for a while did the two set off.
By the time they reached the school gates, everyone else had arrived.
Su Mo smiled and greeted them one by one. "Yo, Little San, morning! Oh, Director Su and Grandmushter, good morning to you too."
Yu Xiaogang stared at the arrivals in astonishment. "You're Su Mo and Xiao Wu? How did you grow so much taller overnight?"
Tang San explained, "Teacher, they absorbed whale rubber..."
He also told Yu Xiaogang about the Ten Laws of Martial Souls and Grandmaster Tian Meng.
The Ten Laws of Martial Souls?
Grandmaster Tian Meng?
Hearing those two terms, Yu Xiaogang instinctively sensed a threat.
Is he trying to challenge me in the ring?
Someone's competing with me even in a niche this small?