Lava Troll Form

"Runes! Such profound, wondrous runes!"

Elemental motes outlined energy circuits, linked end to end in flawless operation.

Eighteen spell formulas activated and fused, scattering and converging like dominoes, carrying an indescribable, bizarre beauty.

A damaged stone stele from over ten thousand years ago, stimulated by the Element-Revealing Potion, could shatter at any moment.

Robert Kava and Yin Ming did not hesitate for even a second. They immediately began memorizing the mysterious runes, determined to imprint every detail of them into their minds.

Crack!

A crisp sound rang out!

The stone stele shattered along its cracks, turning into several dozen pieces of rubble, large and small.

The rune phantoms formed from elemental energy lasted for only thirty seconds.

The stele was completely destroyed. Not only did its concealed energy circuits vanish, even the original inscription could no longer be pieced together.

"Phew..."

Robert Kava closed his eyes and reviewed it once.

Only after confirming that he had not missed a single rune did he let out a long breath of stale air.

"Did you memorize it?"

"No!"

"Did you memorize it?"

"Almost!"

Robert Kava and Yin Ming exchanged a glance.

Casually, one of them pressed down hard and ground the stele's final fragment into powder.

This way, even if the All-Knowing Eye descended in person, it would not be able to discern what had once been inscribed upon the stele.

"Dark! Truly black-hearted! I wonder which unlucky fool owned that inscription?"

Yin Ming secretly resolved that he could not fall behind in learning extraordinary languages in the future.

Otherwise, asking someone else to decipher things for him would simply be spending money to hand loopholes over for others to pick up.

"A Zero-Ring Wizardry rune. Though it had rather too many spell formulas making it up, it was ultimately just an apprentice-level sorcery rune. Why did it make Robert Kava, a council chairman, turn so black-hearted?"

Puzzled, Yin Ming quickly walked out through Ember's gates and casually scooped up a handful of stone powder.

The rune's effect was unknown. It might conceal some enormous pitfall, just like the Abyssal Sacrifice Rune—one wrong move, and a person would be gone!

He would wait and watch Robert Kava first. If he was still alive a few months later, it would not be too late to study the inscription runes.

"Collect! Extract!"

Yin Ming stored the stone powder in the Scavenger Gourd, removed the stone material, and retained the residual potion that had not yet fully reacted.

[Name: Element-Revealing Potion.]

[Ingredients: Spirit-Eating Tree sap (Magic Plant), Soul Crystal fragments, Gold-Eroding Water...]

[Note: The wind leaves behind its sound, geese leave behind their tracks. A miraculous potion that makes illusory elements visible to the naked eye.]

[Extractable:...]

Compared to the runes, the stone powder was a benefit he could see and touch.

In Yin Ming's eyes, the formula for the Element-Revealing Potion was no less valuable than the inscription runes.

"..."

In the blink of an eye, thirty days passed.

Within Flameburner Undercity, Yin Ming lived a steady, peaceful, dull life of two points and one line.

Either he meditated and cultivated at his residence, or he read in the Scholar Building. Occasionally, he went to the association's Exchange Building, exchanging Golden Sore Medicine for merit and purchasing Second-Ring Bloodline Potions, Magic Plant materials, and Magic Plant seeds.

"External Core—completed!"

Yin Ming suddenly opened his eyes. Three small metal spheres revolved across his palm like stars.

One of the metal pellets, after being refined day and night without rest, had finally developed a sensation of flesh-and-blood connection. It had transformed from a Primordial Elixir into an External Core.

"Bloodline Potion Version 2.0—the Lava Troll King Potion."

Yin Ming took a transcendent potion from the Scavenger Gourd, crimson as blood and scorching hot.

The potion had been made by improving and optimizing the Blood-Fusing Potion and Sorcerer Bloodline Potion through the Scavenger Gourd, merging the two into one and making it more suited for the External Core of the Seventy-Two Forms.

The difficulty of the improvement was not high!

The two potions had originally been split from a single potion.

The Blood-Fusing Potion served as material for the sorcerer rune, the True Name Rune.

Then, it was slowly absorbed through medicinal baths to fuse with one's bloodline. The purpose was to preserve the human body and weaken the impact brought by the extraordinary bloodline, so that one would not lose wisdom and memories and degenerate into a bloodline-based extraordinary creature.

An External Core!

Had none of those concerns at all.

Yin Ming simply fused the two potions. Once he purified the Lava Troll bloodline in a single step, he could create an extraordinary version of the Bloodline Potion.

[Name: Bloodline Potion 2.0 (Extraordinary).]

[Ingredients: Lava Troll essence blood: 32%, Blood Crystal of the Crimsonblood Vine: 32%, Gold-Eroding Water: 7%...]

[Note: When you gaze into the Abyss, the Abyss also gazes into you. This potion can completely transform you into a Lava Troll King hatchling of the Abyss. Review: You do not seriously think the method of use is oral consumption, do you?]

[Mutation: 99%.]

A knight's Life Essence was simply a pared-down Zero-Ring Bloodline Potion for sorcerers.

Yin Ming finally understood why the Quasit Bloodline Potion's mutation rate had never been able to break through ninety percent.

The materials were simply too poor. They did not even contain a trace of Magic Plant components. Had all the raw materials not been optimized by the Scavenger Gourd, they would not even have achieved the effect of fusing bloodlines.

Back then, if Red Nose had possessed even one Blood Crystal of the Crimsonblood Vine, he would have had the Quasit King bloodline.

[...]

Using the Bloodline Potion as ink, Yin Ming traced the first-ring totem Mystic Rune of a Lava Troll across the surface of the External Core.

His hand was steady, his heart was steady. Every stroke was as meticulous as a micro-carving, perfectly drawing out the first-ring True Name Rune.

The Gold-Eroding Water in the potion underwent a displacement reaction, leaving behind upon the adamantine surface of the External Core a vivid flame-colored, intricate first-ring True Name Rune totem.

"Nine-Ring Wizardry: Seventy-Two Forms—Lava Troll Form."

Yin Ming poured in spiritual power and magical power, and the totem patterns on the External Core began to glow.

When the first complete Zero-Ring rune lit up.

A transparent giant gradually took shape behind Yin Ming and wrapped around his physical body, providing protection like outer armor.

"Wooo..."

Black Abyssal aura coiled around it as elemental energy continuously gathered from the surroundings. The Lava Troll phantom gradually became clearer.

Its face was half-human and half-beast. Savage tusks jutted out like those of a wild boar, while a shell of black stone skin wrapped around crimson lava. Its scorching aura transformed into waves of heat.

"The first Dharma form—completed!"

A smile appeared on Yin Ming's face.

Of the three second-ring extraordinary creature bloodlines in his possession, Yin Ming was particularly satisfied with the Lava Troll's biological structure.

Its humanoid structure, its powerful and muscular upper body, its beastly tusks and claws—it completely matched the form humanity would evolve into for battle.

"Grab!"

Yin Ming continuously injected spiritual power and magical power, lighting every part of the first-ring True Name Rune.

The Lava Troll phantom almost solidified into substance, while his spiritual power and magical power drained at a terrifying speed.

Not daring to delay for even a moment, he hurriedly controlled the Lava Troll to test its strength. It seized a huge iron ball nearby and exerted fierce force.

Crack, crack...

With the Lava Troll's biomimetic structural model added in, the elemental body seemed filled with muscles, tendons, and bones. The strength of its entire body transmitted through its frame, and the iron ball was like a lump of rotten mud, easily squeezed with five finger marks.

The scorching heat burned the iron ball red-hot, and it even showed signs of melting into molten iron.

"The elemental Lava Troll Form rivaled a true first-ring sorcerer. And it could be used without drawing runes. Other than being a little ugly, it had no flaws."