Evolution Origin; Struggling Over the Name

The training progressed more slowly than Mo Yuan had expected, but fortunately, it was not absurdly slow.

For the first three days, the twelve of them spent most of their time struggling with the engraving of the core magic arrays.

Mo Yuan arrived every morning, demonstrated the process once, then walked around the workbenches and pointed out each person's problems. He left the rest of the time for them to practice repeatedly on their own.

By the seventh day, the fastest person could independently complete the engraving of an entire core magic array within the standard time, with a stable conduction rate of over eighty-seven percent.

By the tenth day, even the slowest person had passed the minimum standard.

On the morning of the twelfth day, Mo Yuan announced that the course was over.

"Everything else is in the manual. Go back and study it yourselves. When you run into a problem, look through the book first. Come to me only if you can't find the answer." He stood in front of the factory building and looked at the twelve people, who were far steadier than they had been on the first day. "Your current level is enough for you to operate independently under the standard procedures. You'll handle the first trial production run on the production line. Report any problems directly to me. Don't betray the organization's trust."

No one raised any objections.

In fact, their most unanimous feeling over the past seven days had been: They didn't dare to ask.

The depth of his technical understanding, the precision of his hands, and his ability to stand in front of them and identify their problems within just five seconds had made them completely abandon any questions.

Moreover, what they gained here in a single day might exceed what they could learn through a year of independent research. They were more than happy to accept it.

Mo Yuan left the factory building, zipped up his coat, and went straight back to his quarters at the association.

Jin Ling crouched on his shoulder. The golden glow in its abdomen had changed from a pulse into a steady, constant radiance, like a little sun hidden beneath his collar. He could feel its warmth even through the fabric.

He closed and locked the door, then pulled down all the Soul Tool light-blocking panels in the room.

Then he opened the sealed metal box at the bottom of his Storage Soul Tool.

The metal box was lined with three layers of vibration-isolating material. At its center lay an irregularly shaped, dark-gold, bone-like object.

It was about as long as an adult's forearm. Extremely fine natural patterns covered its surface, and when he held it, he could feel faint energy fluctuations within it, like the weakly beating heart of a fossil.

Chen Xinjie had sent it over three days ago.

The Soul Bone produced by a ten-thousand-year Three-Legged Golden Toad.

Mo Yuan spread an isolation mat across the tabletop and placed the Soul Bone at its center. Then he activated the ultra-high-temperature smelting furnace he had specially built himself.

The furnace was far smaller than a conventional smelting furnace, but its maximum temperature could be raised to more than three times that of standard equipment. Multiple layers of restraining magic arrays had been added to its inner chamber to prevent energy leakage.

He placed the Soul Bone inside the furnace chamber, set the heating curve, closed the hatch, and took a step back.

Jin Ling leaped onto his shoulder and quietly crouched there, its two round eyes fixed unblinkingly on the smelting furnace's observation window.

Its forepaws were slightly curled, while the brightness of the glow in its abdomen increased in sync with the rising temperature inside the furnace, as if it were resonating faintly with the Soul Bone.

When the furnace temperature broke through the critical point, cracks began to appear across the Soul Bone's surface.

The dark-gold bone gradually softened and melted under the extreme heat, eventually becoming a golden liquid sphere suspended in the center of the furnace chamber.

Tiny particles of light continuously escaped from the sphere's edges. Blocked by the restraining magic arrays, they remained inside the furnace chamber and formed a constantly circulating band of light.

Mo Yuan opened the energy collection port on the side of the furnace chamber and connected all the detection Soul Tools he had prepared in advance to the furnace chamber.

The probes of those detectors aimed at the golden liquid sphere from different angles, collecting real-time data on the frequency, intensity, and wave patterns of its energy radiation.

The feedback gathered on his Soul Tool screen into a constantly rolling spectrum chart. One frequency band stood out particularly sharply—the frequency hovered around one hundred thousand hertz, and its energy density was far higher than that of the surrounding bands.

Mo Yuan glanced at the spectrum chart and memorized the characteristic parameters of that frequency band, but he did not stop.

"Jin Ling, go in."

Jin Ling leaped down from his shoulder.

While it was in midair, the golden light in its abdomen had already brightened to its limit, and a hazy, transparent halo appeared around its body.

The instant it leaped into the furnace chamber, the golden liquid Soul Bone seemed to be drawn by something and moved toward it on its own, enveloping its tiny body like a miniature cocoon.

Jin Ling's body turned over once inside.

It did not struggle. Instead, it curled up as if it had found a warm nest and closed its eyes.

The golden liquid layer visibly grew thinner, its energy being absorbed bit by bit.

Mo Yuan stood watch over the screen.

The detector's feedback showed him that the entire absorption process was stable and normal, with no signs of rejection or energy overload.

After roughly an hour, the golden liquid material inside the furnace chamber had been completely absorbed.

Jin Ling curled up at the bottom of the furnace chamber, its entire body wrapped in a film that had dimmed considerably but still retained a golden sheen.

Cracks began to appear across the film. They grew larger and larger until it split open like an eggshell, and Jin Ling crawled out from inside.

Its body had nearly doubled in size.

Its originally palm-sized body now stretched to roughly the length of two palms. Its overall color had changed from light gold to a deeper dark gold, while a layer of fine, scale-like patterns had appeared across the skin of its back, like the natural markings found only on the descendants of ancient divine beasts.

It crouched at the bottom of the furnace chamber, shook its body, and then let out a croak. Its voice was considerably louder than before and carried a clear vitality.

Mo Yuan opened the furnace door and reached out to catch Jin Ling as it leaped out.

It was much heavier in his hand than before, its weight having at least doubled.

Jin Ling crouched in his palm and looked toward him with its round eyes. The simple look of dependence it had once possessed now held something more complex, as if it had gained a greater degree of intelligence.

Mo Yuan lifted it to eye level and examined it, confirming that its vital signs were stable and its Soul Power fluctuations normal before placing it back on his shoulder.

"So you've reached ten thousand years... I didn't waste all that food I gave you."

He stroked the frog's head, then returned to the Soul Tool screen and brought up all the spectrum data he had just collected, going through it again.

The timing and intensity changes of the frequency band around one hundred thousand hertz were extremely regular. Every time Jin Ling's energy absorption efficiency visibly increased, the signal in that frequency band reached a brief peak.

It appeared far too consistently to be randomly generated high-frequency noise. It was more like a specific energy state—some kind of key energy that guided a Soul Spirit across the age-rank threshold.

Mo Yuan extracted that section of the spectrum separately, marked its frequency range, energy-density distribution, and the conditions governing its appearance, then created an independent folder. Above the folder, he typed a line:

"Evolution Origin—Key Energy Frequency Band for Soul Spirit Rank Advancement (Tentative Name)"

He added another note: "Source unknown. Known trigger condition 1: high-concentration energy supplied by a Soul Bone of the same species. Direction for further research: seek other possible sources and verify whether it can be deliberately generated through artificial means."

After finishing, he exited the interface and encrypted and archived the folder.

Jin Ling crouched at the corner of the table, lowered its head, and licked the fine new scales on its forepaw. It seemed quite satisfied with its new body.

Mo Yuan stood up and stretched, rolled his shoulders, and began gathering the tools and blueprints scattered across the tabletop.

The hatch of the smelting furnace was still open. He closed it as he passed by and cleaned away the trace amount of dust remaining inside the furnace chamber.

Quite a few miscellaneous matters had piled up over the past few days—the construction at the factory in the eastern outskirts was still moving forward. Although he had already handed the specific technical work over to the twelve of them, the overall construction progress still needed to be checked regularly. Huo Yuan also had several files waiting for his signature. When Chen Xinjie had sent the Soul Bone last time, he had added, "Let's talk more when you have time." That clearly had not been casual politeness.

He sat in his chair and reorganized the storage space of his Storage Soul Tool. Just as he was arranging several rolls of old blueprints in order, a thought suddenly surfaced in his mind, light as a bubble rising to the surface of water.

Should I establish a force of my own, too?

Having to do everything myself is a little exhausting...

But what should I call this force?

Anti-Entropy? Or Schicksal? Surely I can't call it World Serpent?