The Principles and Predicament of the Nine Transformations

What people feared most in life was not seeing the end at a glance, nor darkness without a single ray of light.

It was having a faint glimmer of light and hope right before their eyes, yet being unable to grasp it no matter what, forced to watch that tiny light fade away completely, spending the rest of their lives sinking bit by bit into despair amid regret and pain.

What Chen Yumo was doing now was exactly that.

If he really smashed Gangzi to death with one blow, then Gangzi would be completely unable to give up on himself. After all, there was no way to kill someone who was already dead, and whipping a corpse was meaningless.

It could not bring him any pleasure at all.

What he wanted was to give Gangzi a little hope, then send his life soaring and crashing, crashing, crashing, crashing, crashing, crashing, crashing... Then, when Gangzi was ready to give up at rock bottom, he would give him another sliver of hope, only to send him soaring and crashing, crashing, crashing again...

He would not let him die, but he would not let him live well either.

There was clearly a faint light ahead to illuminate his path, yet the road was covered in thorns, cockleburs, cacti, and camel thorns. He could not even find a single foxtail grass stalk.

After teaching the secret to Xiao Chenyu, Chen Yumo paid little attention to what followed.

He only heard that during the first two days, both Gangzi and Tang San had acted somewhat crazily. Yu Xiaogang, in particular, had spent several nights howling like a ghost, crying about regret over and over.

And he truly should regret it.

Chen Yumo's idea of feeding Martial Souls had come from him, yet he, the very person involved, had failed to benefit from it. He had perfectly missed the best period for nurturing a Martial Soul.

If, when he had first awakened his Martial Soul, he had fed Luo Sanpao as Chen Yumo did and then obtained the corresponding Spirit Rings, would he at least be a Spirit Saint by now?

Gangzi regretted it so much his intestines had practically turned green.

Just as Chen Yumo had said, his potential had already been exhausted, and his Martial Soul had taken shape. He could no longer use feeding to promote Martial Soul Evolution. Forcing it would only cause indigestion, allowing medicinal power and energy to accumulate in his body and harm him instead.

Neither Tang San nor Yu Xiaogang doubted Chen Yumo's theory.

After all, they had read a few books. They could still tell whether the most basic principles of a theory were feasible.

The theory was all correct, and just as Chen Yumo had said, during his time studying at Nuoding Academy, he had only fed Mulberry Leaves to the Ice Silkworm. Everyone had seen it, so there was no possibility that he was lying.

That meant Yu Xiaogang was the only one who had taken the wrong path. With his potential exhausted, he could no longer replicate Chen Yumo's path.

That was precisely why he had wailed like a ghost for several days.

As for why it stopped afterward, no one else knew.

Only, after those days, Tang San and Yu Xiaogang both became exceptionally busy. They often left the academy, and even when they occasionally appeared, their faces were full of exhaustion as they hurried along.

They were probably following Chen Yumo's claim that it was theoretically impossible but still had a slight chance in practice, searching everywhere for an opportunity to evolve.

This was another pit Chen Yumo had dug for them.

Although Douluo Continent had quite a few heavenly treasures capable of changing one's talent and completely remaking a Spirit Master, every one of them was a treasure among treasures. The most famous were the various Immortal Herbs within the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well.

Even the Nine-Rank Purple Ganoderma Gangzi consumed in the original work did not qualify as an Immortal Herb, but it was still a rare wonder among medicinal ingredients that had reached the ninth rank. By comparison, its value was no less than a Ten Thousand Year Soul Bone.

So even if they knew that heavenly treasures could make a Martial Soul evolve, could the two Soul Grandmasters actually get their hands on one?

Not to mention someone like Gangzi, who never stepped outside his door. He probably did not even know where dangerous lands lay or where heavenly treasures might grow.

So Chen Yumo was not worried at all.

If Gangzi could change his fate, he would have done so long ago. Why would he wait until Chen Yumo fiercely struck the Demon Pill before suddenly turning his luck around and soaring to greatness?

If Gangzi could really take off, Chen Yumo would eat the Encyclopedia Advanced Edition of the Four-in-One Encyclopedia right in front of him!

Rather than worry about Gangzi taking off, Chen Yumo might as well spend more time considering what to do about his next evolution.

Chen Yumo felt numb.

For his second Metamorphosis, he had originally intended to undergo Basalt Transformation, but the problem was that he could not find suitable medicinal ingredients to feed the Ice Silkworm.

This required some time to sort out Chen Yumo's method of Metamorphosis.

He was cultivating his Ice Silkworm Martial Soul according to the metamorphosis method of the Divine Silkworm clan from Shrouding the Heavens.

But unlike the Ice Silkworm, the Nine Transformations of the Divine Silkworm was the Divine Silkworm clan's racial talent. The abilities and laws of the nine transformations were engraved deep within their bloodline. They did not need to learn or comprehend anything. As long as they continuously developed their bloodline, they could undergo their next Metamorphosis upon reaching the limit of a stage.

His Ice Silkworm did not possess that ability.

That was why Chen Yumo needed to retain the Ice Silkworm clan's Cocooning ability during its first evolution.

That was the stage he was currently at.

If he wanted to obtain the transformation of another race during his next evolution, then from level eleven to level nineteen, he needed to feed the Ice Silkworm enough resources for it to accumulate sufficient bloodline origin. Then, after obtaining a Spirit Ring and Breaking Cocoon, it would possess a second transformation.

How different that race was from the original one did not matter.

Put simply, after the Ice Silkworm formed a cocoon again, it was like becoming a blank egg once more. What Chen Yumo needed to do was imprint the genes he wanted into that blank egg. Once the egg hatched, it would hatch into the animal he wanted.

An egg without any genes would hatch into a snake if filled with snake genes; into a chicken if filled with chicken genes; into a fish if filled with fish genes, and so on.

That was why, after understanding the system's mechanism from the start, Chen Yumo had decided to follow the path of the Nine Transformations of the Divine Silkworm.

Nine transformations, nine races that could be switched between at any time. Combined with the Bloodline Secret Technique, Chen Yumo would effectively possess nine Martial Souls.

If he could truly accomplish what he had envisioned in theory, he would undoubtedly become immensely powerful after succeeding.

Far stronger than any Ultimate Martial Soul or God-level Martial Soul.

But the predicament before him was just as obvious.

For his first evolution, he had followed the proper steps and cultivated the Ice Silkworm in the direction a silkworm should evolve, so there was no need to add any extra materials.

This time, if he wanted to evolve toward the Black Turtle-Snake, he had to feed it medicines with both water and earth attributes, carrying the bloodlines of both snakes and turtles.

He had spent nearly half a month flipping through almost the entire Encyclopedia Advanced Edition. Either the materials did not meet his requirements, or they were simply too expensive for him to afford.

The plan for Basalt Transformation had been declared a failure before it even began.

After all, Black Turtle-Snakes were still far too obscure on Douluo Continent. Though powerful, beings of this type were extremely difficult to find, whether Spirit Beasts or related materials.

"It seemed the second transformation would still have to be a more common powerful Spirit Beast."