Copying Gets It Done

Since he was preparing to win the championship, Su Fan naturally could not be unprepared.

Without a trump card, fighting two Soul Emperors across ranks as a Soul Ancestor was unrealistic.

Even with two ten-thousand-year soul skills, that remained true.

Besides, the greatest uncertainty on the Shrek Team was still Huo Yuhao and the others. They might suddenly break through their limits while shouting about glory or something.

Apart from Shrek, another favorite for the championship was the Sun Moon Royal Team. That would also be a tough battle.

Given Su Fan's current circumstances, he feared the Sun Moon Royal Team more in terms of raw strength, while the Shrek Team had plenty of unexpected variables when it came to sudden breakthroughs.

Thus, the two teams were equally difficult opponents.

The Shrek Team had two Soul Emperor-level combatants, as well as Huo Yuhao's pair and their absurd four-Martial Soul Fusion Skill.

The Sun Moon Royal Team was equally troublesome: one Soul Emperor and two Soul Kings with a Martial Soul Fusion Skill. At a crucial moment, that Soul Emperor could use the eighth-grade Soul Tool, the Sword of Judgment, and could be regarded as having quasi-Soul Saint combat power.

Knowing all this, Su Fan still declared that he would win the championship because he had made ample preparations.

At that moment, the apertures throughout his body had already been armed.

There were three hundred and sixty Heavenly Circuit Apertures. Of them, Su Fan had made thirty-six resonate with his Soul Apertures, unleashing true soul skills—soul skills with sentience.

He had more or less engraved the Core Arrays of Soul Tools into all the remaining apertures.

Most of them were Milk Bottles, used to store massive amounts of Soul Power.

"As expected of Mingde Hall's technology. The slight differences in the details of these arrays can actually produce a twenty percent difference in effect."

Some of the Core Arrays inside the several sixth-grade Milk Bottles Su Fan had bought at auction were ones he had encountered in Milk Bottles he had studied before.

Yet tiny differences had increased the effectiveness of those arrays by twenty percent.

And that was only in the similar portions.

The complete arrays contained many things his previous arrays had never possessed.

Gradually, Su Fan became absorbed in them.

The sun rose and the moon set.

The tournament continued. It did not pause for Su Fan's cultivation.

In the drawing for the round of sixteen to eight, the Dou Ling Team did not face Shrek. Instead, Shrek drew the second-place team from their group.

The Dou Ling Team's opponent was the Zhengtian Team, an academy composed entirely of Soul Masters.

Among the Douluo Three Empires, the Heaven Dou Empire was the most hostile toward Soul Tools, and its reverence for the Martial Soul Department was especially intense.

Zhengtian Academy was the most typical example. It rejected the Soul Guidance Department so thoroughly that it had not even established one. Every student at the academy was a Soul Master from the Martial Soul Department, and not one dual-cultivated in the Soul Guidance Department.

Even in this Soul Master Tournament, they had never used a Soul Tool.

Yet despite that, the Zhengtian Team often made it into the top eight.

That only showed that the Zhengtian Team truly had strength.

Ye Wuqing, martial soul Golden Leaf, a level fifty-eight assault-type battle Soul Master!

He was the captain of the Zhengtian Team and only nineteen that year.

Given another year, it was not impossible for him to break through to level sixty.

Besides Ye Wuqing, they had two other Soul Kings.

A lineup of three Soul Kings was considered weak in this tournament, but not truly weak.

At the very least, based solely on their lineup, they had a chance of reaching the top eight.

Only a handful of teams truly surpassed the Zhengtian Team.

Shrek, Sun Moon Royal, Star Luo, Di'ao, and Dou Ling.

Yes, only the teams from those few academies had a higher proportion of Soul Kings than the Zhengtian Team.

The format of the match was determined by drawing lots.

"Individual elimination matches!"

Su Fan looked at Guzhu Jian.

Guzhu Jian nodded and stepped forward.

Qian Yuan and the others were all prepared behind him.

Su Fan could participate in individual matches, and he could even wear down all seven opponents.

With Soul Power stored in every Heavenly Circuit Aperture, his endurance could no longer be defined by the standards of a Soul Ancestor.

But there was no need for that.

He had no need to expose himself at this time.

After Dugu Jian took the stage, Su Fan closed his eyes in the preparation area and continued cultivating.

The Core Arrays within his apertures were operating. He needed to drain the Soul Power from them before making minute adjustments to the arrays, even adding new structures.

Once a new array was completed, it could store Soul Power again. He would then transfer the Soul Power from the old-version apertures around it into the new-version aperture, allowing him to update the empty old-version apertures.

Over the past few days, he had already replaced five apertures.

That was no small undertaking.

Su Fan did not need to take the field at all. The Dou Ling Team's five Soul Kings defeated all seven members of Zhengtian.

The Zhengtian Team directly forfeited the subsequent team battle.

In the individual matches, all seven of them had suffered severe exhaustion, while the Dou Ling Team had preserved a measure of strength and even rotated their members.

There was simply no way to fight the next team battle.

As a result, the Dou Ling Team secured a place in the top eight.

For the next three days, the Dou Ling Team had no matches.

Su Fan stopped attending.

He already had information on all their opponents, so there was no need to waste any more time.

During that period, there was also a truly top-tier auction. Su Fan had little influence at that auction and was unable to compete for the Snow Empress Embryo or the Ice Jade Scorpion Left Arm Bone. However, he acquired the Tyrant Tiger Soul Refining Blade. In addition, the set of twelve Fixed Soul Guidance Shells was snatched from Shrek by the Dou Ling Royal Family, three of which were temporarily placed with Su Fan for research.

This was the result of Su Fan slightly revealing his ability to decipher Core Arrays.

"There has been progress in analyzing the Tyrant Tiger Soul Refining Blade."

Electrolux brought Su Fan good news.

"Really? So soon?"

Su Fan was overjoyed.

"The Core Arrays inside this Soul Tool are not particularly powerful. They merely have many varied effects."

Electrolux gave a brief explanation.

Put simply, the arrays were not high-level. Through their combination and the power of the soul bone, their grade had been raised to the eighth level.

In truth, the individual Core Arrays used within were only fifth or sixth grade.

Electrolux was studying an entirely new system. If the arrays themselves had been high-level, he would have needed to study them gradually. But with low-level arrays combined in this manner, he could essentially grasp them instantly.

Most of his time had been spent analyzing the function of each part of the arrays.

"Here, here, and here. These nine regions in total are related to the soul bone's energy flow."

"Different soul bones should require different modifications as well. This Tyrant Tiger Soul Bone has six energy inlets and outlets, while the remaining three regions restrict the circulation of Soul Power within the soul bone..."

Within the Sea of Consciousness, Electrolux projected the complete Core Arrays inside the Tyrant Tiger Soul Refining Blade for Su Fan.

Of them, the portions surrounding the Tyrant Tiger Soul Bone were the highest priority.

"Besides the sections involving energy flow, these are also very important to you. They are the key to the deep fusion between the Tyrant Tiger Soul Bone and this blade."

"..."

Su Fan carefully memorized everything, and a complete logic gradually formed in his mind.

"So, in theory, if I possessed the ability of a sixth-grade Soul Engineer to engrave Core Arrays, I could try replicating the Tyrant Tiger Soul Refining Blade's design?"

"Engraving arrays works that way. You only need to copy them exactly. I will do my best to help you combine the arrays."

"Thank you, Elder Yi."

This was Su Fan's most proper understanding of Soul Tools.

Someone would help design the arrays, and all he needed to do was understand them before reproducing them.

Copying them got the job done.

And he did not even need to copy them onto rare metals. He only needed to reproduce them within his own apertures.

As his control over the Heaven Sealing Earth Locking soul skill deepened, Su Fan could now use multiple apertures to seal off a space. With the assistance of several apertures, he could shrink that space down and exercise extremely precise control over the space inside a single aperture.

With that ability, the difficulty of reproducing Core Arrays within his apertures was greatly reduced.

"What about the Core Arrays in those Fixed Soul Guidance Shells...?"

Electrolux met Su Fan's questioning gaze and said helplessly, "You have to give me time to rest too, don't you?"

Though he said that, Electrolux had barely rested at all.

He was more than willing to study such a completely new system.

After arriving in this world and taking up residence within Su Fan's Blade of Life, he had observed this new plane and studied its Soul Master system.

The Soul Engineer system was naturally part of his research as well.

He was particularly fond of this system, which used Core Arrays to explain the laws of heaven and earth.

As a mage, his desire to study such a system was stronger than ever.

"Although I have not finished analyzing them, I already understand the general idea. At least in this set of Fixed Soul Guidance Shells, so-called fixed installation means layering enough Core Arrays together to unleash greater power."

"This is different from the Tyrant Tiger Soul Refining Blade."