Soul Bone

After the auction ended, Li Ming did not pay much attention to them anymore.

He still had the Satellite AI generate a guidance interface, much like a game tutorial, accessible through their virtual panels.

As for the Closed Beta slots, they only needed to gather people together and confirm the location and number of participants, and the Satellite AI could pull them in directly.

In the blink of an eye, several days passed.

According to the managers of the two empires' banks, all the Gold Soul Coins had been transferred.

Li Ming had already created accounts for them beforehand, and they could change their own display names.

What truly identified them was a string of numbers—a five-digit number.

To prevent them from gleaning information based on the order of those numbers, Li Ming had assigned them random IDs.

When Li Ming entered Purple Heaven City again, it was already livelier than before.

However, most people were cultivating their Soul Skills in their own residences.

With only four hours of usage time per day, they could not cultivate for long anyway.

Li Ming sat in the City Lord's Mansion, looking at his panel.

Now, every user had a Blue Angry Bird following them. A light squeeze would summon their virtual panel.

The virtual panel had a friends list and chat system, though it only supported voice input.

There was also a mailbox where they could leave messages for the city lord.

Li Ming was currently reviewing the messages sent to him.

Most people had left messages asking whether the Personal Cultivation Assistant's cultivation time could be increased.

Li Ming ignored those messages outright.

However, some of them pleasantly surprised him.

Someone had asked whether they could rent a shop to do business.

When Li Ming saw that message, his eyes immediately lit up.

He had long had that idea, yet someone had already brought it up of their own accord.

If Dream Coupons were to truly circulate, Purple Heaven City's commerce had to develop.

And these Closed Beta users were no ordinary people. Naturally, they could see Purple Heaven City's commercial prospects!

This place gathered prominent figures from both great empires. They were all high-end clients, so its commercial value was naturally immense.

Just a little of the wealth leaking from those big shots' hands would be enough to keep them in business for a year.

In response, Li Ming directly had the Satellite AI issue an announcement.

Anyone who wanted to open a shop in Purple Heaven City could apply to him. Once approved, they would be granted a shop in the Outer City, with no rent or taxes required during the Closed Beta.

As for why it was the Outer City, it was because no one actually lived in the Inner City yet.

He was still planning to make a fortune selling houses after the Public Beta began.

Logically, there should be buyers, because the residences in the Outer City were all small units, while the Inner City mostly consisted of estates with varying degrees of luxury.

After releasing the announcement, Li Ming did not concern himself with it further.

Instead, he brought up the large model developed by the Satellite AI.

This was the Soul Ring age-limit model he had ordered the Satellite AI to research.

The model had been built using data from several cases of failed Soul Ring fusion and a large number of successful fusion cases.

Its conclusion was that the upper limit for Soul Ring fusion was indeed positively correlated with physical fitness.

However, the fusion of Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Rings was somewhat different.

Through data analysis, the Satellite AI discovered that energy fluctuations became abnormal during the fusion of a Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Ring, making fusion failure extremely likely. It speculated that this might be because the souls of Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Beasts were too powerful and interfered with the fusion.

Therefore, if Li Ming wanted to fuse a higher-aged Soul Ring, his physical fitness first needed to reach a certain level.

At the same time, even after reaching that level, he could at most absorb a nine-thousand-nine-hundred-ninety-year Soul Ring. Otherwise, there would be a high chance of failure during fusion.

Li Ming's gaze flickered as he looked at the Satellite AI's conclusion.

He only needed time to build up his physical fitness. With his First Soul Skill, his thousand satellites could absorb solar energy and continuously push his physical fitness higher.

It was merely a matter of time.

But... was it truly impossible to fuse a Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Ring?

A nine-thousand-nine-hundred-ninety-nine-year Soul Ring and a Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Ring appeared to differ by only one year, but the distinction was enormous.

The former was still a Thousand-Year Spirit Ring, while the latter was a Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Ring!

Missing even one year meant it did not deserve to be called a Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Ring.

Li Ming narrowed his eyes. Since mental strength was the key to whether he could fuse a Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Ring...

Then he just had to break through in mental strength, didn't he?

There were many ways to increase mental strength. The first was to break through in Soul Power level, but Li Ming immediately ruled that out.

There were also Immortal Herbs, but every Immortal Herb location Li Ming had monitored was deep within forests, beyond the reach of his current strength.

In that case, only one final method remained.

Soul Bones!

Li Ming opened the Satellite Map and moved it to Sunset Forest, the forest closest to Heaven Dou City. It was densely covered with red dots.

Every red dot represented a Soul Beast.

After Li Ming filtered them for a while, most of the red dots disappeared, leaving only scattered dots on the map.

Li Ming stared at the red dots on the Satellite Map with blazing eyes.

The red dots were Soul Beasts that the Satellite AI had detected as anomalous, and they might contain Soul Bones.

Of course, he had never seen a Soul Bone, and neither had the Satellite AI.

Those Soul Beasts might not necessarily possess Soul Bones. They might also have undergone some mutation that the satellite detection equipment had registered as an anomaly.

But they might also contain Soul Bones.

As long as he obtained a Skull Bone, his mental strength would surge after fusing with it.

Then absorbing a Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Ring would no longer be a problem.

If he absorbed a Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Ring at Level 30, he would have two whole additional Ten-Thousand-Year Soul Rings compared to other genius Soul Masters. That would be crucial to his future.

Therefore, he had to achieve perfection, even if it took more time.

With his First Soul Skill, his Soul Power cultivation speed was actually countless times faster than that of geniuses.

So increasing his realm was not the best choice at present. He needed to make everything as perfect as possible and reach the limit he was capable of reaching.

In the blink of an eye, half a year passed.

Over those six months, he seemed to have become an ordinary student, attending school obediently. Aside from taking leave to go out every so often, neither the academy's teachers nor his parents knew what he was doing.

At this moment, Li Ming stood alone in Sunset Forest, holding a long blade as he confronted a boar-like Soul Beast before him.

It was clearly a Millennium Soul Beast, even one close to five thousand years of cultivation. For a Great Spirit Master like him, it was practically a nightmare.

Suddenly, the Soul Beast attacked, charging straight at him. The instant it launched forward, Li Ming fiercely leaped to the side.

The boar turned into an afterimage, appearing behind Li Ming in the next second.

Had he not dodged in time, he would likely have been sent flying by the impact.

That flash-like charge was this Soul Beast's innate Soul Skill.

As a result, Li Ming could not even get close enough to strike with his long blade.

Seeing this, he could only use his trump card.

Second Soul Skill, Dream!

Li Ming directly had the satellite lock onto it and launch a Dream attack.

In an instant, the satellite began pulling the Five-Thousand-Year Soul Beast into a Dream. Yet the Soul Beast merely shook its head slightly and dispelled the Dream attack.

Forced Dream!

Li Ming's eyes flashed as he mobilized a hundred satellites to cast the Dream Soul Skill on it. This was an application of his Soul Skill that he had developed over the past half year.

This could not pull it into a Dream, but when multiple satellites activated the Dream Soul Skill at the same time, they could clearly inflict a mental shock upon it!

At that moment, numerous figures rapidly fell from the sky. On closer inspection, they looked exactly like Li Ming's Satellite Spirit.