Chapter 22: War Merchant’s Research Data |
All of the relevant data the tower spirit retained was revealed.
The Bloodcore’s function was to absorb external bloodlines, then perfectly transform the host’s living form with it.
But the Bloodcore could only work on its host.
War Merchant had greater ambitions, he wanted to develop the Bloodcore further and create a unified army of magic beasts.
War Merchant created the Bloodline Integration formation to extract bloodlines from the Bloodcore and forcibly insert it into magic beast test subjects.
The experimental magic beasts could retain their living form while under the magic prohibition formation. Without it or the Bloodcore maintaining stability, they would immediately die.
Even if a magic beast was strong enough to survive, they would be struggling a step from death’s door.
This plan was just beginning when it encountered an enormous challenge.
War Merchant noticed in his analysis that the magic beasts were dying from bloodline conflicts. The magic beasts were very difficult to keep alive due to these bloodline conflicts.
Through exhaustive pondering, he created the Green Life Liquid formation, using it to extract as much power from the Green Jade Golden Coffin to create a strong healing effect, the extremely ephemeral Life Green Liquid
With a steady flow of Green Life Liquid to heal and sustain, the test subjects were barely kept alive after the Bloodline Cultivation formation was used on them.
Even with War Merchant’s treatment, 78% of the experimental magic beasts died out.
The 22% of the experimental magic beasts that survived the Green Life Liquid got to leave the underground factory,
War Merchant was hadn’t succeeded.
He quickly noticed that these experimental magic beasts had extremely short life spans.
The reason was easily discerned, despite maintaining the conflicting bloodlines, the mixed bloodlines would absorb external elements from nature and cause their magic power to become chaotic.
Upon magic power destabilization, every single modified magic beast would die.
War Merchant had spent a very long time researching a solution to this problem.
He had done constant improvements and used all kinds of methods.
The Bone Horn Goats, Strong White Rhinoceros, Bat Monkeys, the Blue God Fox Wolves…from their design concepts to their development process, there were detailed notes and data recordings pertaining to the changes to them.
Only scant results were yielded.
Until War Merchant’s finally found the most likely way to surmount this obstacle, a cultivation spell.
People often had mixed bloodlines.
Usually, the main bloodline overpowered the weaker ones, thus the weaker bloodlines’ influence on their living form was minimal.
In addition, during cultivation, a cultivator would purify any extremities from lesser bloodlines, strengthening their main bloodline and culling the lesser ones until finally dispelling the weaker ones completely from themselves.
There are also some cultivators that intentionally preserve their bloodlines and cultivate specific battle qi techniques, carefully monitoring the balance between two bloodlines, giving them two types of aptitude.
Thus, War Merchant used his might to gather as many battle qi techniques, meditation methods, and other such things as he could.
A new problem arose.
Magic beasts were universally dumb, even if they had a cultivation method, they could not cultivate by themselves.
Exceptions like dragons, whose intellect matched people, often did not cultivate, but instead depended on their bloodlines to grow their strength steadily as time passed.
War Merchant’s first method was to improve the modified magic beasts’ intellect.
He quickly reached the limit.
The Blue Dog Fox Wolf was the best he could accomplish, but even with their intelligence, it was still very difficult for them to cultivate independently.
Most of all, these modified magic beasts had mixed bloodlines and radically changed life structures, no battle qi technique or meditation method was suitable for them.
As for the path of divine power, War Merchant was not a god, and lacked attainment in soul path, thus this way was obstructed.
In the end, War Merchant decided to abandon the modified magic beast project and instead shifted his gaze to intelligent lifeforms.
However, he hadn’t given up on it completely.
He changed the landscape of Mystifying Monster Island, created the magic prohibition environment, and raised many modified magic beasts.
On the one hand, he hoped that in the future, there might be a skill or an insight that could help him break through this difficulty. On the other hand, he also hoped that natural selection and evolution through allowing these remodeled magic beasts to reproduce and live over time would create a more stable life template.
Most of War Merchant’s energy was thrown into a new project, the aforementioned Transformed Beastman project.
The advantage of this project was that people had wisdom. People could cultivate battle qi techniques and meditation methods, balance their bloodlines on their own, and produce battle qi or magic power.
The disadvantage was that the physical bodies of people could not compare to that of magic beasts.
Although the previous project failed overall, it had yield plentiful gains.
With the help of the Green Life Liquid, War Merchant solved the problem of the weak humanoid body.
By using the memory changing device, War Merchant also successfully got his test subjects to cultivate on their own.
Failure, failure, still failure.
War Merchant discovered that the external bloodlines strongly conflicted with the test subjects.
As one’s cultivation deepened into either battle qi or magic power, the incompatibility would grow fiercer until it was eventually fatal!
Everything seemed to be back at square one.
Despite trying many paths, they all ended in a dead end.
This fact even dismayed War Merchant for a time.
But he never gave up.
He never let his dismay and other negative emotions influence his actions.
Sometimes taking a step back was not giving up, but rather another way of going forward.
War Merchant changed his line of thinking and settled for the next best thing.
He no longer forcefully imparted external bloodlines into people, rather he excavated the test subjects’ bloodlines as much as possible.
Even ordinary people might contain extraordinary bloodlines, however such a bloodline was too small and had an extremely low concentration.
War Merchant developed the Bloodline Purification formation.
With this formation, he could increase an extraordinary bloodline’s concentration, then dispel the other bloodlines, giving the subject a pure bloodline.
He succeeded!
Finally, after expending countless amounts of energy, time, and capital, along with being forced to change his method to solve the many unimaginable difficulties that popped up halfway
He had done it.
Although his achievement was quite different than what he had envisioned.
“I must be a test subject transformed by the Bloodline Purification formation.” The goblin youngster’s breathing unconsciously grew heavier.
To replace Zhen Jin, War Merchant had purchased the blood of a Gold Needle Bee at a high price.
He used the Bloodcore to absorb it, then used the Bloodline Purification formation to give the test subject the corresponding Bloodline.
As for the test subject, it needed an important prerequisite.
They needed to have the Gold Needle Bee bloodline, even if the concentration was low!
“The Bai Zhen Clan’s bloodline can be traced back to the Gold Needle Bee. Therefore, by improving this bloodline, one could disguise it as the Bai Zhen bloodline.”
The goblin youngster carefully examined the test record, “There were 83 test subjects altogether, I was the one who rose above the rest.”
“Then who was I originally? Where did I come from?”
The young man’s questions remained unanswered throughout.
War Merchant did not record the young knight’s identity.
Perhaps he only thought of the youngster as only a qualified test subject.
“Or perhaps my information was lost. After all, War Merchant’s data library is not complete.”
The youngster was silent for a moment, then coughed.
Zi Di’s spirit power was smaller than his, thus she finished first.
The ghost girl looked at the young man, her voice troubled, “My Lord, according to the written accounts, all of the test subjects were collected by Jian Zuan. He should know your origins.”
The young man nodded, of course he had seen that already, “But his whereabouts are unknown, it is indeterminate if he’s alive or dead.”
“There will be something eventually.” Zi Di consoled, “Even of the clues are really gone, we can still use divination or prophecies.”
“Mystifying Monster Island was protected by the Anti-investigation and Prophecy formation, but your Lordship is the biggest clue!”
“According to the currently available clues, your Lordship is very likely to be a common knight, with your extraordinary bloodline possibly being the Bai Zhen bloodline.”
If it was the Bai Zhen bloodline, the youngster might be related by blood to Zhen Jin.
Nobles had chaotic private lives, and it was normal for them to abandon bastards.
However, that was only one possibility.
Because the source of the Bai Zhen bloodline was the Gold Needle bee. Therefore, the young man also might belong to one of countless bloodlines that branched from it, unassociated with the largest branch that was the Bai Zhen clan.
The youngster bowed his head to gaze at his palm and bitterly laughed, “You know? Many times, when I used the Bloodcore to transform into beasts or a dragonman, I felt more comfortable in them than in my human body.”
When he was human, the youngster looked like Zhen Jin.
The pity in Zi Di’s heart increased, and she decided to float over to snuggle into the youngster’s chest, “I believe you will learn your true identity one day.”
“Everything will get better!”
“We tempered ourselves in Mystifying Monster Island, did we not?”
“We have divine artifacts and this alchemy data. We will redeem ourselves, use the Bloodcore to become great people, establish our own alchemy factory, and rise into the ranks of the imperial upper class.”
Zi Di gazed at the young man, “We will be together.”
“I will be resurrected, and you will regain your original appearance.”
“I will have my Merchant Alliance, and you will have your manor, or even your own fief.”
“We…will also have a child.”
Zi Di’s face flashed with embarrassment.
The young man laughed and responded, “Yes. In the spring, we will walk our children through the greenery. During the summer, we will watch the rainstorms through our castle’s windows. In the autumn, we will take the children hunting. Then in the winter, we will huddle by the stove and tell them old stories and fairy tales.”
The ship hold was warm.
The crystal ball slowly flickered with white light.
The young man wanted to take the girl’s hand, so the girl slowly placed her own onto the youngster’s palms.
In the end, neither let go.
The two were so close, but were separated by life and death.
