"A thousand-year second ring, a ten-thousand-year fourth ring-how exactly did Lin Yi do it?"
Flender stared at the Heavenly Screen in midair, turning the question over in his mind.
He had founded Shrek Academy, proclaiming that it admitted only monsters, and he cared most about methods that defied common sense.
Without a doubt, Lin Yi was a genuine monster in Flender's eyes, capable of what ordinary people could not do.
"Was it personal talent? Or were there clues to follow, some fixed method?" Flender murmured to himself.
He stared at the scenes on the Heavenly Screen, hoping to glimpse some reason why Lin Yi had managed to absorb Soul Rings beyond his level.
Unfortunately, the Heavenly Screen's purpose was not to let them learn cultivation techniques from later generations.
Everything the Heavenly Screen showed was part of Lin Yi's transformation.
In fact, from the moment the Heavenly Screen appeared until now, the scenes it had shown included Lin Yi awakening his Martial Soul, absorbing Soul Rings, and experiencing an epiphany.
These scenes had flashed by just like a slideshow, like a preview before the most exciting show began.
Afterward, scene after scene continued to play out.
With his fourth Soul Ring, Lin Yi achieved a ten-thousand-year fourth ring.
The scenes that followed grew even more spectacular. They showed neither Soul Hunting nor an epiphany.
This seemed to be a fortuitous opportunity, one even more crucial than an epiphany.
Lin Yi was in a treasure land shimmering with flowing colors. Precious lights of every hue could be seen around him, each corresponding to a different natural treasure.
Most peculiar of all, the place where he stood had a spring of ice and fire.
"What place is this?"
Soul Masters throughout the Douluo I era were puzzled, but Dugu Bo alone stared fixedly at the spring of ice and fire.
It was actually his own medicinal field!
Dugu Bo was utterly shocked.
"In the scenes shown by the Heavenly Screen, that monster named Lin Yi actually found a fortuitous opportunity in my medicinal field!"
From the scenes on the Heavenly Screen alone, he could not tell which Immortal Herb Lin Yi had consumed.
But that alone made Dugu Bo realize how important his medicinal field was.
After the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well, Lin Yi appeared in a bottomless ice cavern. Darkness surrounded him, but through the image on the Heavenly Screen, it seemed as though a current of extreme cold descended from the heavens and spread across the entire continent.
The Ten Thousand Year Mysterious Ice Cavern!
In the Far North.
The Ice Empress and Snow Empress stood side by side, staring fixedly at the image on the Heavenly Screen.
"It's a Ten Thousand Year Mysterious Ice Cavern! There's actually another Ten Thousand Year Mysterious Ice Cavern on this continent!"
The Ice Empress murmured excitedly to herself, repeating the words over and over.
Beside her, even the Snow Empress's eyes lit up.
For any ice-attribute Soul Beast, a Ten Thousand Year Mysterious Ice Cavern was a fortuitous opportunity capable of defying the heavens and changing its fate!
Of the Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice Marrow formed within, even a single piece could help the vast majority of ice-attribute Soul Beasts cross the greatest hurdle they currently faced.
Even the Ice Empress felt that two pieces of Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice Marrow at most would be enough to give her confidence to face her next heavenly tribulation.
Perhaps she would not be guaranteed to survive it, but two pieces of Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice Marrow could definitely carve out a sliver of life for him from a situation of certain death!
With three, four, or even ten pieces of Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice Marrow, the Ice Empress's chances of surviving her next heavenly tribulation would rise to at least fifty percent.
And a Ten Thousand Year Mysterious Ice Cavern often produced dozens of pieces of Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice Marrow.
There was a Ten Thousand Year Mysterious Ice Cavern in the Far North. It was enormous, but hidden in a remarkably secret corner. In the end, Tian Meng obtained it, allowing the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm, despite being an Ice Silkworm, to sleep his way to a million years of cultivation!
From this, the importance of Ten Thousand Year Mysterious Ice Puppets was clear.
Thus, while many Soul Masters on the continent wondered whether this ice-attribute opportunity would be of much use to Lin Yi, a Soul Master with a Chess Martial Soul, only the Ice Empress and Snow Empress knew just how great a fortune Lin Yi had obtained.
Leaving everything else aside, if Lin Yi could take the Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice Marrow he obtained from the Ten Thousand Year Mysterious Ice Cavern to the Far North, the Snow Empress and Ice Empress would certainly be glad to see it.
If Lin Yi had a way to protect his life and the basis for a trade, both the Ice Empress and Snow Empress could pay a corresponding price for it.
Yet the fortuitous opportunities did not stop there.
After his fourth ring, Lin Yi seemed to have entered a period of explosive growth. He explored the continent, gathering one scattered opportunity after another, each enough to forge a peerless powerhouse of an era.
The cold current spilling from the Heavenly Screen had only just faded when a sinister presence gradually began to spread.
On the Heavenly Screen, Lin Yi held a carving knife that radiated an eerie chill.
"He found fame so young-how many could resist letting it go to their heads? Didn't he fall in the end?"
"He became a Fallen Soul Master!"
Yu Xiaogang sneered as he watched.
He was just about to send a bullet comment of his own when his eyes suddenly narrowed.
For in Lin Yi's hand, the carving knife radiating that sinister presence was actually melting. Once the evil power within it had gradually worn away, its original appearance was revealed.
Its entire body was actually an emerald green.
The carving knife radiated a green light that nearly filled the entire screen. Its life force burst forth so powerfully that even people standing on the road, looking up at the image on the Heavenly Screen, felt their own blood and vitality surge.
"Gold of Life! This Lin Yi actually obtained a piece of Gold of Life as well!"
In Spirit Hall, Qian Daoliu cried out in surprise.
A thousand-year second ring, a ten-thousand-year fourth ring, and that epiphany, in which he turned all things in heaven and earth into a chessboard, then contained that chessboard of all things within his body. His meridians, blood, and flesh interwove to form a human-body chessboard, drawing out his own potential.
By then, Lin Yi was already an unparalleled genius of his generation. If he did not fall along the way, he had an excellent chance of becoming a Peerless Douluo.
And yet this very Lin Yi had obtained one fortune after another: an Immortal Herb, Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Ice Marrow, and now even Gold of Life!
What extraordinary luck was this?
The images continued to change.
Just as everyone felt, the scenes the Heavenly Screen had first shown had flashed by like a slideshow, a prelude to the truly long Heaven and Earth Chess Game that would follow!
These scenes had surely captured the attention of every Soul Master.
The Heaven and Earth Chess Game that followed would be a genuine live broadcast, a match lasting years, perhaps even ten or twenty years or more.
With this opening prelude, it would surely draw the attention of every Soul Master to Lin Yi in the future.
Lin Yi began absorbing Soul Rings again.
His fifth Soul Ring was actually a full fifty thousand years old!
After that, the next scene was even more jaw-dropping.
For Lin Yi had once again entered a state of Deep Meditation.
He experienced another epiphany.
This time, his human-body chessboard reached some kind of limit.
His blood and flesh interwove, his vital presence surged, and his entire demeanor became markedly different.
Behind him, silver threads interwove to form a luminous human figure. The figure shifted, seeming in turn to become a chessboard. The chessboard changed again, seemingly merging with the heaven and earth behind him, as though it were evolving into a world of its own.
With this silvery-white image on display, Lin Yi seemed even more unfathomable.