Rem

With a wave of his right hand, Bai Xiao sent the flames from the fireball scattering in all directions. The fire instantly burned away the beast blood on the ground, though it also scorched some plants, leaving a bald patch of earth.

Bai Xiao pulled out a piece of turf from behind him and laid it directly over the spot.

Don't overthink it. The turf Bai Xiao had just taken out was his "Bai's No. 2 Invisibility Cloak." There were heaps of grass seeds everywhere in the forest, so gathering them was no trouble at all. Bai Xiao had made dozens of them in one go.

Good heavens, that very night, when Bai Xiao pulled out the clothes he had made, an entire patch of forest floor went bald. Bai Xiao figured the herbivores that came by afterward must have been utterly baffled, like humans encountering crop circles.

"Who the hell was so hungry? Like it hadn't eaten since birth! One beast actually stripped an entire patch of forest bare. If it could climb trees, it probably would've eaten every last leaf too!" A group of soul beasts complained wildly.

Bai Xiao felt no guilt whatsoever. Blue Silver Grass? Wasn't that stuff everywhere? Pulling up a little shouldn't be excessive.

What Bai Xiao didn't know was that herbivores all had territories. The herbivores that had originally lived there—

Because Bai Xiao had stripped all the grass from that patch, some had run off to fight over other territories, eating grass elsewhere after winning.

Those that lost could only stare longingly at the leaves overhead, hoping today's meal would fall sooner.

Bai Xiao carefully used flames to scorch the blood on the rabbit's body, reducing the spread of its bloody scent.

Some of the rabbit's fur was scorched as well, giving off the smell of burnt hair.

As for the source of the flames in Bai Xiao's hand, it naturally came from the innate skills of his Cell Martial Soul: "Copy," "Paste," and "Evolution."

Over the three months since becoming a Soul Master, Bai Xiao's stamina had greatly increased. So, he returned to his old trade. It had to be said, becoming a Soul Master made looting corpses feel completely different.

With better stamina, he could travel farther. Naturally, he encountered more corpses. Bai Xiao could tell that the number of bodies he looted each day had averaged five or six times what it had been before.

Besides, all Bai Xiao could get from corpses in the past were the pitifully small amounts of money and clothing on them. Now, he could do much more—for instance, extract their genes!

Bai Xiao discovered that just as he could extract Blue Silver Grass genes after Assimilation with Blue Silver Grass, the Cell Martial Soul could likewise extract a corpse's genes after Assimilation with its cells, and even transform the Cell Martial Soul into those cells!

During this time, he had looted plenty of corpses: soul beasts, Soul Masters, and ordinary people.

Bai Xiao recorded all of their DNA using the Cell Martial Soul.

While experimenting with his Martial Soul, Bai Xiao discovered that he could actually control flames. More precisely, Bai Xiao could make the Cell Martial Soul generate the specific organs of soul beasts.

Just as the Flame Lion King spewed flames through the glands in its mouth, and the Red-Patterned Boar released fire patterns through the pores on its back.

These were innate physiological abilities of soul beasts, relying on special Soul Power organs.

Since Bai Xiao could make his Martial Soul completely transform into those soul beasts, he could naturally transform it into those special Soul Power organs as well.

The core of the fireball in Bai Xiao's hand was naturally a special soul beast organ transformed by his Martial Soul.

Bai Xiao transformed the flame-producing organs of several fire-element soul beasts and studied their mechanisms in detail.

In the end, Bai Xiao selected the best option, choosing the most efficient structure. After modifying it further, he increased its efficiency severalfold before finally settling on the design.

But if Bai Xiao got something better in the future, he would definitely replace the organ inside the fireball's core. As his methods were upgraded step by step, they would only grow stronger and stronger.

However, as the number of recorded gene types continued to increase, Bai Xiao found sorting through the data increasingly troublesome. The gene bank was simply too extensive and chaotic.

So Bai Xiao launched a crazy plan: "Create a system inside his brain."

The brain could be regarded as a kind of computer. Computers connected through circuits, while the brain connected through neural synapses, using nerve impulses as signals. Some fantasy works on Blue Star featured people inputting their consciousness into computers as data—the so-called "brain-computer interface."

Bai Xiao tried using the Cell Martial Soul to create a "System Assistant" inside his brain, and he actually succeeded!!

Even Bai Xiao himself couldn't figure out how he had done it. The brain of a carbon-based lifeform had actually created a silicon-based lifeform, as if Bai Xiao himself had originally been a silicon-based lifeform...

He could use it to handle certain matters and simplify his work.

Bai Xiao silently said in his mind, "Rem, pull up the soul beast genes I've stored."

"Master, there are currently nineteen types of soul beast genes related to flames. They have all been retrieved for you."

An ethereal young girl's voice replied in Bai Xiao's mind.

"Who doesn't have a little sister these days?" Bai Xiao said with a smile.

Rem's calculations were based on Bai Xiao's brain and memories. She could access the knowledge and memories in his mind, automatically classify and organize the genes stored by Bai Xiao's Martial Soul, and even remember Bai Xiao's routes...

Up to this point, Bai Xiao had not studied knowledge about the types of soul beasts. His judgments of soul beasts currently all came from the experience he had accumulated himself.

The advantage was that Bai Xiao's experience could be effectively applied in actual combat. The disadvantage was that he could not systematically categorize soul beasts.

After three months of cultivation, Bai Xiao finally reached level ten Soul Power, which meant he could finally absorb his first Soul Ring.

Bai Xiao had decided that his first Soul Ring would be a plant-type Soul Ring.

Plant-type Soul Rings possessed powerful vitality and could strengthen the proliferative ability of Bai Xiao's Cell Martial Soul. There was also a high chance that they would increase Bai Xiao's control over plants.

By planting modified plants across large areas, Bai Xiao could assist his cultivation and even provide or strengthen his False Domain in battle.

Most of the plants where Bai Xiao currently was were products of his modifications. They had stronger competitive abilities than ordinary plants, such as shorter growth cycles, greater absorption capacity, and higher seed yields.

Within a month, they rapidly gained a foothold in the forest.

Drawing a circle with Bai Xiao's current location as its center and a radius of one thousand meters, nearly everything within it was Bai Xiao's "False Domain."*

Bai Xiao could control plants to conceal his scent and scout for dangers around him.

In battle, they could all sense the surrounding environment as if they were Bai Xiao's own body. Bai Xiao could even modify certain plants into traps.

Within this "False Domain," Bai Xiao dared say that he had a chance to kill any soul beast under a thousand years old or any Soul Master below level thirty! Of course, as long as there weren't too many of them.