Soul Skill: Zeroing

"What's going on? My body feels so heavy."

Li Chen opened his eyes to find Wine Fox sleeping sprawled across him. Lying on top of him was one thing, but she was clearly dreaming about delicious food, and she was even drooling on him.

He reached out to lift Wine Fox off him, but just as he was about to move her, she clung to him tightly. Left with little choice, he shook her awake.

"Wake up, wake up."

"Mmm~" Wine Fox reluctantly pulled away from his chest. "Master, are we going to get our Soul Rings?"

"Refine this whale rubber first." Li Chen took out the whale rubber he had bought yesterday. After telling her how to use it, he went to find Brown Robe, Feng Yi, and Bei Yi.

"Feng Yi, take these sixty-one Teleportation Steles and travel around the Heaven Dou Empire. Find suitable places to set them up. You only have a budget of a hundred thousand Gold Soul Coins. You'll have to figure out the rest yourself."

"Bei Yi, take your people along with him, but leave them stationed at those locations. Their only responsibility will be gathering intelligence. You can also try recruiting some children who have just graduated from junior Soul Master Academies."

"Brown Robe, I'm planning to establish an academy. For now, arrange for people to prepare the materials."

After assigning the three their tasks, Li Chen returned to watch over Wine Fox as she absorbed the ten-thousand-year whale glue. He also took out a notebook and began writing and sketching.

Besides the arrangements he had already made, he also wrote down his plans for the items he would retrieve through Creative Mode next.

Obsidian, iron blocks, and flint, for building a Nether Portal and crafting Flint and Steel. That would give him an entire dimension.

End Portal Frames and Eyes of Ender would do the same, though he didn't know whether there would be an Ender Dragon or whether mobs would spawn automatically.

Blocks of diamond, blocks of netherite, a Smithing Table, and a Netherite Upgrade Smithing Template would let him get both himself and Wine Fox a full set of the best equipment in the vanilla game.

An Enchanting Table and blocks of lapis lazuli would let him enchant their equipment and raise its ceiling even further.

Enchanted Golden Apples, Totems of Undying, and Splash Potions of Healing would greatly improve their chances of staying alive.

A Lectern and a Brewing Stand. One would let villagers become librarians, while the other would let him brew potions himself.

Monster Spawners, Villager Spawn Eggs, Iron Golem Spawn Eggs, and pig, cow, sheep, and chicken spawn eggs. Villagers could work for him, Iron Golems could serve as bodyguards, and the other creatures would provide food.

After writing down the long list of items he needed, Li Chen realized that even though he could now take three items in Creative Mode, it would still take quite some time.

That didn't even include all the items he would need for redstone technology. Of course, redstone technology didn't seem quite as useful in Douluo, since it took up far too much space.

The large-scale redstone contraptions he usually saw in the game would probably be even more enormous in reality. After all, each block was a meter across.

Unless he could shrink them down. Redstone's potential was incredibly high, after all; it could even be used to build computers.

He also couldn't wait until the academy was built to start planning it. He was even considering building the academy directly in the End.

Of course, only the inner academy was planned for the End. The outer academies would still be built around the continent.

There was another problem, though: the teaching staff. Theoretical knowledge alone wouldn't be enough. At the very least, they needed the strength to take students Soul Hunting.

Surely they couldn't take students Soul Hunting only to lose their own lives? Apart from learning, wasn't having teachers help them hunt for Soul Rings precisely why students enrolled in an academy?

While he was still wondering where to poach... no, recruit teachers, Wine Fox finished absorbing the ten-thousand-year whale glue.

"Master, when are we leaving to go Soul Hunting?"

After absorbing the whale rubber, Wine Fox wanted nothing more than to get her Soul Ring and grow stronger as soon as possible. That way, if something like last night's incident happened again, she could deal with it directly instead of letting it spoil her mood.

"All right, let's head out now."

With the Teleportation Stele, they returned to the cave in the Star Dou Great Forest in the blink of an eye. The Iron Golem was standing guard there.

As soon as they stepped out of the cave, they encountered a thousand-year Man Faced Demon Spider. Sensing a threat when it saw them, its instinctive response was to flee.

"Since you're already here..." Li Chen wasn't picky. Their meeting was fate, and it was only fitting that the spider become his Soul Ring. He immediately ordered the Iron Golem to attack.

Seeing that it couldn't outrun the Iron Golem, the Man Faced Demon Spider spat a web at him. Although the neurotoxin coating it had no effect on the Iron Golem, the web was also sticky and highly resilient.

The Man Faced Demon Spider seemed to know that its web wouldn't hold the Iron Golem for long, so it turned its gaze directly toward Li Chen.

Instead of continuing to flee, it charged at Li Chen. At that moment, one of the Iron Golem's shortcomings became apparent: he had nothing but raw stats, without a single skill.

The Man Faced Demon Spider raised its legs, revealing the human face on its abdomen. Just as it was about to stab downward, its movements froze.

Li Chen drew his Stone Sword and rapidly slashed at the human face on its abdomen. However, a Soul Beast's body was still tougher than a human's.

Although he did inflict some damage, it wasn't enough to kill it. He could only slash once more at a weak joint in one of the Man Faced Demon Spider's legs, then pull Wine Fox back with him as he swiftly retreated.

Both legs stabbed empty air. Before the Man Faced Demon Spider could even wonder what was happening, it suddenly collapsed to the ground, intense pain spreading through its abdomen.

Looking at the prey that had suddenly blinked over three meters away, it no longer had any intention of continuing the hunt. All it wanted was to leave this bizarre place as quickly as possible.

But just as it began to rise, the Iron Golem broke free of the web and sent it flying with a punch before giving chase. The Man Faced Demon Spider tried to spit another web, but the Iron Golem was already in front of it and threw another punch.

Just two blows left the Man Faced Demon Spider barely clinging to life, and Li Chen drove his sword through its head.

After ordering the Iron Golem to stand guard, he immediately began absorbing the Soul Ring. Absorbing a ring without exceeding his limits was exceptionally efficient.

Before long, Li Chen successfully absorbed the Thousand-Year Soul Ring. He placed the command block down and opened its settings interface.

Following the plan he had prepared in advance, he began entering a tp command, but left out the exact coordinates and waited for the command block to return a result.

[Error! Teleportation coordinates were not entered correctly]

It actually failed? That was unexpected, but understandable. Perhaps his Second Soul Ring really had been a special case.

Next, he tried the /XP99999L command again. This time, he wanted to confirm the range of values he could currently modify.

[Error! The maximum value the current player can set is: 8]

Only eight levels. That's still not quite enough.

Wait! Why am I only thinking about leveling myself up? Why don't I reset everyone else's level to zero?

He immediately adjusted the command and entered:

/xpset@e[name=!Li Chen,name=!Wine Fox]0levels (set the level of every entity except Li Chen and Wine Fox to 0)

After waiting a few seconds without an error appearing on the command block, he selected confirm and named this Soul Skill Zeroing.

Isn't this much more useful than temporarily gaining a few levels? At level 0, they won't be able to use Soul Skills and will have barely any Soul Power. They probably won't even be able to use Self-Created Soul Skills.