After asking his question, Gao Shang stared at the system panel with some tension.
Though this thing was evil, its potential was very real.
This time, however, the system did not immediately refresh the panel. Instead, a notification he had never seen before popped up.
[Ding, this item was detected to have been created three days ago. The shop is undergoing a temporary update. Please wait...]
"An update?"
Gao Shang froze for a moment.
"System, you have this function too?"
He had always thought the System Shop's inventory had been fixed from the day it bound to him. He had never expected that the shop could actually update.
[Dear, this system checks this plane every month for newly created items and promptly adds them to the shop for the host to choose from.]
At those words, Gao Shang immediately perked up.
The system actually had such a hidden rule. Didn't that mean he could create an item himself, and as long as the system added it to the shop, he could buy an enhanced version there?
For example, creating a pill that could increase Soul Power?
However, the system's method of enhancing pills did put the cart before the horse somewhat.
It would only increase the age of the herbs used in the pill. Its optimization of the original formula mainly ensured that the pill would not deviate from its original effects.
But the effects of medicinal ingredients were not unchanging.
Take Full Moon Wearing Autumn Dew, for example. Before it matured at a thousand years old, its dewdrops could not improve spiritual power and could only sharpen eyesight.
If someone used it to refine pills, the shop would probably offer pills refined with mature, ten-thousand-year-old Full Moon Wearing Autumn Dew that still retained only the eyesight-sharpening effect.
The greatest benefit of Full Moon Wearing Autumn Dew would instead go to waste.
Of course, that did not mean the system was useless.
As long as he refined one finished pill, he could purchase it in bulk from the shop afterward, saving a great deal of time and effort.
By comparison, Gao Shang still valued Soul Tools more.
The shop's rule for enhancing Soul Tools was to extrapolate higher- or lower-grade arrays from the original Core Array, then match them with materials of the corresponding grade.
In other words, he could absolutely make a prototype mobile phone, then leave it to the system to extrapolate and perfect.
Then he could purchase a high-grade phone and reverse-engineer a lower-grade phone from it. Once he made a new finished product, he could use the system to enhance it again.
Wouldn't that be like stepping on his right foot with his left and spiraling straight into the heavens?
"Not bad. This approach should work. I'll find a chance to try it."
[Update complete. Flesh Puppet has been added to the shop.]
Gao Shang had been deep in thought. Upon hearing the notification, he immediately looked up at the panel.
Sure enough, a brand-new item called "Flesh Puppet" had appeared on it.
However, after the system classified it, it had been divided into multiple levels, with corresponding versions ranging from a level-one Soul Scholar to a level-one-hundred God Officer.
Gao Shang casually opened one of the item descriptions.
[Flesh Puppet (level-ninety-nine Soul Power)] [Description: possesses a level-ninety-nine physical body and Soul Power, but lacks a Martial Soul and Soul Rings. Another soul must fuse with it before it can act independently.] [Notice: after a low-level Soul Master's soul fuses with this item, the remaining Soul Rings must be acquired independently. Once fused, separation is impossible except through death.]
Looking at the puppet on the panel, with its utterly broken appearance, Gao Shang could not help shaking his head.
As expected, without a soul, it was merely an immobile shell with limited practical use.
What he found even more unacceptable was that the puppet had only one appearance: the one Zhou Qi had pieced together.
That appearance was truly hard to accept.
In any case, even if he died, he would never crawl into something like that to cling to life.
Still, the Flesh Puppet did have considerable research value.
After all, it was a vessel capable of housing a soul, and under certain circumstances, it could give someone a second life.
Moreover, if he could develop a way to control the puppet without relying on a soul, such as an intelligent chip...
Wouldn't he be able to directly purchase Titled Douluo-level, or even God Officer-level, robots?
Who on the Douluo Continent would be able to stop him then?
Over the next few days, Gao Shang stayed quietly in his little courtyard to recover.
Thanks to ample pills and foods rich in blood Qi, his recovery took less time than he had expected.
In just five days, his injuries had healed completely.
Over those days, aside from recovering, Gao Shang had been pondering one question.
The laws of the Douluo Continent clearly were not that bad, so why were there still so many evil deeds?
In the end, he arrived at an answer: an imbalance of power.
Even if the commoners at the bottom banded together in rebellion, an army of Soul Masters could easily suppress them. With such a disparity in power, those at the top could naturally exploit them without restraint.
To change this state of affairs, either the ruler had to be wholeheartedly devoted to the people and possess the absolute strength to crush the entire continent single-handedly, or the commoners had to gain the ability to protect themselves.
But each of these paths was harder than the other.
The second, in particular, was practically equivalent to standing against every Soul Master on the entire continent.
Gao Shang thought for a long time before suddenly realizing that this was not a multiple-choice question at all, but the answer itself. The two did not conflict.
The first was the path he would have taken anyway, while the second was a way to develop the system's capabilities to their fullest extent.
Only by giving ordinary people the ability to protect themselves could they safeguard their wealth and have a chance to prosper, allowing the continent's total economy to keep growing.
Only when there was more money on the continent could he earn more money and purchase those items in the shop intended for people's livelihoods.
This would form a complete cycle, and one day, he would accumulate enough funds to purchase any treasure in the shop.
Gao Shang's thoughts wandered further and further, until the tangled mess left his head spinning.
"Forget it. Enough thinking."
He rubbed his temples.
Thinking alone would not produce an answer to a problem like this. He still had to take things one step at a time.
"I'll go try out some Ninjutsu first."
Gao Shang had someone notify Wang Tianyuan, then headed straight for the training ground he had specially renovated.
Ever since absorbing the Fire Phoenix Wings, he had yet to properly experience the boost this Soul Bone gave his Fire Release Ninjutsu.
Now that his injuries had finally healed, he naturally wanted to try it at once.
"Fire Style: Great Fireball Technique!"
On the training ground, Gao Shang leaped backward, his hands rapidly forming hand seals.
In less than two seconds, he opened his mouth and spat out a crimson fireball thirty centimeters in diameter.
The fireball tore through the air, a wave of heat rushing forward as it slammed into the massive hammer in Wang Tianyuan's hands.
Boom!
Wang Tianyuan's feet left the ground, and the blast sent him flying four or five meters backward. He landed on his backside, staring at Gao Shang in shock.
"Boss, I surrender! That fireball of yours is way too powerful."
Gao Shang landed, walked over, and helped him up.
"All right, I've more or less figured out the power of this Self-Created Soul Skill. Come on, let's eat. You're getting an extra dish today."
"Really, boss?"
At the mention of an extra dish, Wang Tianyuan immediately perked up, no longer even paying attention to the pain in his body.
Ever since he had started accompanying Gao Shang in training, he had been able to eat Soul Beast meat rich in blood Qi every day, but its taste was truly unremarkable.
After all, Soul Beast meat that both tasted good and contained abundant blood Qi did not come cheap.
After the incident with Zhou Qi, Gao Shang had already acknowledged Wang Tianyuan and Hong Hua.
But as their superior, he still had to mete out rewards and punishments appropriately. If he gave away the best things for free right from the start, managing them later would instead become difficult.
Thus, Wang Tianyuan normally ate ordinary Soul Beast meat costing thirty Gold Soul Coins per jin, with lesser dragon meat only occasionally.
If he rendered meritorious service, it would not be too late to reward him with delicacies like true dragon meat or Polar Ice Phosphorus Shrimp.