Changing Soul Rings

The instant the Beacon was set down... nothing happened.

Li Chen glanced up, dismantled everything, then flew straight above the Nether's bedrock ceiling, smashing every block in his path with his bare hands. Even bedrock broke with a casual swipe in Creative Mode.

The bedrock ceiling was perfectly flat, clearly ideal for building all sorts of facilities. He rebuilt a maximum-level netherite Beacon.

A beam of light shot into the sky, no different from a Beacon in the Overworld. Aside from the buffs within its range, there was nothing else to it.

The Nether Star might indeed have something to do with the Nether, but not in the way he had imagined-or perhaps he simply had not discovered its other uses.

Since time flowed differently in the Nether than in the Overworld, he did not linger. He built a portal nearby and returned to the Overworld first.

If creating a dimension was not feasible in the short term, he had a backup plan. Wasn't there a ready-made Divine Realm he could devour?

Douluo did not support reaching level 100, so the energy that allowed Qian Renxue, Tang San, Bibi Dong, and the others to become gods could only have come from the Divine Realm. Wouldn't siphoning divine power from them be an indirect way to drain the Divine Realm's energy?

After returning to the Overworld, he spawned another batch of Villagers, gave them Enchanted Golden Apples and Bottles o' Enchanting, then sent them to the Nether to build the Reincarnation Hall.

He returned to the academy's team. Now that he had obtained Permission Level and permanent Creative Mode, there was no need to rush. He could develop steadily.

"Master, did everything go smoothly?"

"Of course. Once we reach Heaven Dou City, I'll set you up with nine Hundred Thousand Year Soul Rings."

Since Li Chen was now effectively invincible under heaven, he spent his days either petting Wine Fox or thinking about how to bring over the entertainment from his previous life.

Playing cards alone could no longer satisfy him. He wanted to make a Douluo Kill game that would earn a tidal wave of praise, using the continent's famous figures as its characters.

In Heaven Dou City, the teams from the other kingdoms were assigned to the drill grounds upon arrival, with a separate area allotted to each academy.

Inside Cloudtop Academy's military tent, Li Chen laid out the plan:

"We're first up in tomorrow's matches, and our opponent is Canghui Academy. Little Yanzi, you'll go out there and sweep all seven on your own."

"Wow, you really think that highly of me? I'm only a Soul Ancestor. Taking down seven by myself sounds a little difficult."

Li Chen checked. It was not as though the other academies lacked teams made up entirely of Soul Ancestors. Wine Fox only wanted to have some fun fighting in the finals, so the others should get their chance to shine for now.

"Catch." Li Chen tossed a green Shulker Box straight to Dugu Yan. "Use everything in it tonight and reach level 50 first. I'll take care of your Soul Ring."

Then he turned to Ye Lingling, about to toss her a box of Bottles o' Enchanting as well, when Dugu Yan hurriedly stopped him. "Wait, you haven't used that Soul Skill on Lingling yet."

Only then did Li Chen remember. He looked at the others and simply unlocked the inventory function for all of them.

Just as he used his Soul Skill to unlock the last person's inventory, an abnormal spacetime fluctuation suddenly rippled through the area. He immediately spread out his senses, but found nothing.

An unexpected "player" has joined? Almost instantly, he thought of a possible explanation for the spacetime fluctuation.

He hurriedly used Permission Level to run a search, but it was doomed to be fruitless. He did not even know where the newcomer had appeared, and searching the entire Douluo Star would be immensely difficult.

After a quick search turned up nothing, he could only wait for the other person to reveal themselves.

Should he disable entity death drops ahead of time? With this unexpected "player" arriving, he could not be certain whether they were a transmigrator or someone who had been reborn.

After considering a few things, he still decided to follow the original story. He had Permission Level and the creative module—why should he avoid their edge?

At most, they had a month and a half. Could the newcomer become a god outright in that time? As long as they could not, they would have to obediently endure the level cap he imposed.

They would be difficult to identify at a low level, but once they reached Soul Saint, Soul Douluo, or Titled Douluo, he could pick them out at a glance.

Then he transmuted a Ten Thousand Year Soul Ring, handed it to Dugu Yan, and dismissed the meeting.

Wine Fox left with him. Deep into the night, the light in their tent was still on.

"Why did you draw me so ugly? And those tentacles-change them, change them." Li Chen pointed at Wine Fox's drawing.

"Small-fry goshujin." Wine Fox slapped her pen down on the table and turned her face away in a huff. "I'm not drawing anymore. Hmph."

He took a cake from his inventory. "Look, as long as you help me draw, this cake is all yours." As he spoke, he waved the cake in front of her.

Wine Fox's fox ears gave a sharp twitch.

She did not turn her head, but her amber fox eyes visibly flicked toward the cake before darting away again. Still putting up a stubborn front, she snorted:

"Small-fry goshujin, do you think you can buy me off with one cake?"

Then she added in a quiet mumble, "...At least two."

Li Chen nodded at once. "Deal. Just draw me as I look now."

Wine Fox made revisions to the drawing. This time, Li Chen was much more satisfied, and he began designing his own skills.

"Let's call the first skill Creative Mode. Choose any X cards from the deck, where X equals your remaining health times ten. What do you think?"

"Small-fry goshujin, why not just write that picking your character means an automatic win?" Wine Fox quipped.

"No, that won't do. Winning by default and stomping weaklings are two different things. Besides, the gap in our actual strength is a fact, all right? What's wrong with making my skills a little stronger?"

"Goshujin, stop making trouble. Just wait until it's ready to play." Wine Fox pushed him aside.

Watching Wine Fox busily work, he did not disturb her again. Instead, he opened Permission Level to inspect himself. When he saw the age field, a sudden whim struck him, and he added a "1" in front of it.

His age on the interface had indeed changed, but he felt nothing at all. Closing it and reopening it made no difference.

"Let's see if I can change my Soul Rings." Li Chen figured that now he had Permission Level and permanent Creative Mode, his second, fifth, and sixth Soul Skills were all useless.

Finding the Soul Ring interface for his first martial soul, he first tried adjusting a ring's age. He only added 100 years to start with; too large a change might trigger an unusual phenomenon, which would be troublesome.

As he increased his First Soul Ring's age by a hundred years, the surrounding soul power surged madly into it.

"Really not as good as the Transmutation Table." After getting a rough understanding of the principle, Li Chen was sorely disappointed and abandoned the idea of making all his Soul Rings 990,000 years old.

Next, he wanted to try other operations on his Soul Rings, such as removing them. With Permission Level, it took only a few casual adjustments for his second, fifth, and sixth Soul Rings to slowly detach.

Once the Soul Rings had fully detached, they dissipated completely. He took out three new 900,000-year Soul Rings and began absorbing them anew.

After he absorbed the new Soul Rings, the original commands were gone, and he could enter new ones.

This time, he tried again with commands he had previously been unable to set, such as custom teleportation, targeted killing, and the OP command for granting Permission Level.