Chapter 108 Immortality with a Fatal Flaw
With the defense of the Ring of Ultimate Protection, Sunan can attack with confidence.
Faced with the extremely threatening creature like the Blood Soul Worm, he did not hold back at all and immediately activated the Ring of Disaster on his left hand.
Four rings flashed at the same time.
In an instant, four huge gray claws appeared in the void and passed through the swarm of insects like fallen leaves in the wind.
In an instant, countless blood soul insects fell to the ground like dumplings dropped into water.
The dense swarm of insects suddenly became noticeably sparser.
Immediately afterwards, a large amount of silver metallic liquid overflowed from Sunan's body again, transforming into sharp cones that suddenly shot out in all directions with him as the center, instantly killing hundreds of blood soul insects.
Under Sunan's relentless and fierce offensive, the insect swarm was shrinking at an alarming speed.
In just over half a minute, Sunan cleared out the blood soul insects around him and turned to look at Qiangwei on the other side.
The latter's situation is much more embarrassing.
Rose used all her trump cards, but she only killed less than a hundred blood soul bugs, and there were still hundreds around her.
At this time, all her exotic plants had been devoured, and now she could only rely on magic items to resist the attacks of the swarm of insects.
It was also thanks to the fact that most of the blood soul insects were attracted to Su Nan that she was able to hold on until now.
After Sunan came to support, the two quickly cleared out the remaining swarms of insects.
The few remaining blood soul insects were locked up by Su Nan in an iron cage made temporarily from fine iron.
Such a rare creature needs to be taken back for careful study.
After escaping danger, Qiangwei breathed a sigh of relief and turned to look at the place where Sunan had just fought. When she saw the thick layer of insect corpses on the ground, she couldn't help but be amazed.
No matter how many times she had seen it, the power displayed by Sunan always made her secretly frightened.
After a battle, the defense of Sunan's two Ultimate Protection Rings was completely emptied and needed to be recharged before they could be used again.
Another one's defense has been depleted by more than half.
The four Rings of Disaster also need to be charged before they can be used again.
The two steel golems were injured to varying degrees, but fortunately their injuries were not serious. They could return to the base and be placed in the earth vein nodes to absorb energy and repair themselves.
There is about half of my mental strength left, and I can use the magic pattern core for about one minute.
Overall, most of the combat effectiveness is still left.
After having a clear idea in his mind, Sunan held a high-level rune gem in his palm and walked carefully into the passage where the blood soul worm came out.
Behind the passage is a room that has been transformed into an insect nest. The walls are covered with densely packed honeycomb-like holes, and there are still many shed shells of blood soul insects remaining inside.
After checking and finding no remaining blood soul worms, Sunan relaxed a little.
If another group of blood soul insects came, he would have to consider whether to retreat temporarily.
Qiangwei also breathed a sigh of relief. She didn't want to face those terrible bugs again anyway.
Coming out of the left passage, the two turned and entered the right passage.
Behind the passage is also a room that has been transformed into an insect nest, with insects lying in the densely packed small holes on the wall.
When they first saw this scene, Sunan and Qiangwei subconsciously tensed their bodies and assumed a fighting stance, but they soon discovered that it was not a blood soul insect, but a bug that looked like a large seven-spotted ladybug, with a layer of crystals covering its back shell.
They lay motionless in the cave, as if they were in a deep sleep.
Sunan walked forward, carefully took out a bug, observed it for a while, and shook his head at the rose next to him.
"Dead."
There is no life left in this insect.
The two then checked one by one and found that most of the insects were dead. Only six of them still had a trace of life left, but they were as weak as candles in the wind, as if they would disappear at any time.
Sunan thought about it and decided to put these insects into the iron cage and take them with him.
After leaving the insect nest, the two began to search the rooms one by one.
The first room is a warehouse, which contains more than ten shelves filled with various materials.
Just as they expected, because of the long time, most of the materials had deteriorated and could no longer be used.
Only a small amount of rare metals remained intact.
After that, we visited the meditation room, indoor plantation, and potion room, but unfortunately, we didn't find anything.
It wasn't until they entered a place that looked like a magic practice room that they made a discovery.
The entire practice room was covered in dust, and the walls, floor, and ceiling were full of potholes and cracks, looking like they had been through a fierce battle.
A corpse that had turned into bones sat alone in the corner.
The corpse was still wearing a robe.
Sunan could tell at a glance that it was a magic robe, but after such a long time, it must have become ineffective.
"Is this the owner of this place?"
Rose pointed at several rings worn on the corpse's hand bones, and the enchanted runes on them became blurred.
"Maybe." Sunan's eyes swept across the traces of battle in the practice room, "It is possible that there was a second person here."
After checking the corpse and finding nothing valuable, the two left the practice room and came to the last room.
When they saw the large workbench in the room, they both became more excited.
It was obvious that this was a laboratory.
As a place for wizards (apprentices) to conduct experimental research, the wizards' (apprentices') experimental notes are usually placed here.
If there is no study, the notes in the laboratory are probably the most valuable things in this cave.
After some searching, the two indeed found several notebooks.
The paper used for the notebook is made of special material, and even after so many years, there is no sign of corrosion or weathering.
I opened the first notebook and saw a line of big words written on the first page.
"Blood Extraction and Fusion of the Blood Soul Bug"! Sunan and Qiangwei looked at each other in bewilderment.
They have all experienced the weirdness and horror of the blood soul worm, but they didn't expect that there are people who want to extract and fuse the blood of this monster.
Continuing to look down, the name signed is 'Avigny Lucas'.
What follows is a series of experimental processes and progress of this wizard apprentice named Avigni, as well as his psychological insights during the period.
According to the description in the notes, Avigni discovered the blood soul worm by accident.
This strange creature will follow its instinct to devour the flesh, blood, and souls of all living creatures and use this as nourishment to survive.
As long as they have enough souls, they can even live forever and never die.
Avigni has done experiments and found that the soul of an ordinary human can allow a blood soul worm to survive for a month without food or water.
If it were replaced with the soul of a more powerful creature, it could survive longer.
After discovering this, Avigni came up with the idea of integrating the blood soul worm's blood ability of devouring souls and prolonging life into his own body, thereby gaining eternal life.
And he quickly took action.
After cultivating the blood soul worms for a period of time and obtaining enough samples, Avigni immediately began the experiment.
Judging from the time marked on the notes, the entire experiment lasted for more than 20 years, during which there were no less than a hundred failures. Finally, Avigni successfully merged the blood of the blood soul worm and gained the ability to devour souls to prolong his life.
Seeing this, Su Nan and Qiangwei looked at each other, both of them showing surprise in their eyes.
eternal life!
This is the dream of many wizard apprentices.
Only if they live long enough can they realize their dream of becoming a wizard.
Just want to achieve eternal life is so difficult.
All the vast majority of wizard apprentices can do is to extend their lifespan as much as possible.
But Avigni actually did it and achieved immortality.
In comparison, the need to devour souls is nothing.
This is just like people need to eat and vampires need to suck blood. In the face of a long lifespan, it cannot be considered a defect.
"But if Avigni has achieved immortality, then who is the corpse in the practice room?" Rose asked puzzledly.
Su Nan shook his head. He couldn’t figure out the problem for the time being.
With doubts, the two continued to look down.
After the experiment was successful, Avigny was obviously in ecstasy, and his words were full of excitement and complacency.
After that, he cultivated more blood soul worms as research samples, hoping to further strengthen the bloodline ability, reduce the dependence on soul energy, and achieve perfect immortality.
But this research was not successful.
Not long after integrating the blood soul worm's bloodline, Avigni quickly realized that something was wrong.
His soul was polluted! After a series of experiments and investigations, Avigni finally found the reason.
That is, the blood soul worm's bloodline actually has a fatal flaw.
Continuously devouring souls will cause one's own soul to be polluted, gradually twisted and violent, and eventually lose reason and fall completely into madness.
This is also the reason why blood soul worms will attack crazily when they see creatures with flesh, blood and souls.
They have long lost their independent consciousness, leaving only the instincts of killing and survival.
And Avigni is now gradually going through this process.
The good news is that he discovered it early, and as long as he stops devouring souls, he will no longer be contaminated and can continue to maintain his sanity.
The bad news is that because his soul has been polluted, it is almost impossible for him to become a wizard in this lifetime.
Realizing this, Avigni fell into despair.
After that, he frantically tried to find the ability to eliminate the blood soul worm's bloodline defects, but unfortunately he was never able to do it.
This went on for more than ten years, and Avigni gradually felt that he was approaching the end of his life.
He was unwilling to die like this, so he started back on the path of devouring souls, hoping to find a way to eradicate the problem before he lost his mind.
From then on, the contents of the experimental notes gradually took on a hint of distortion and madness, and the degree of distortion gradually deepened. The last few pages were filled with all kinds of meaningless graffiti, which made people feel inexplicably creepy.
After reading the notes, Su Nan couldn't help but sigh.
The end of Avigni is obvious.
In the end, he still couldn't find a solution and was completely lost in madness.
It now seems that the traces in the spell practice room were not left by a battle, but were most likely caused by Avigni's own madness.
The corpse leaning against the wall was exactly Avigni.
"What a pity, there is only one step left." Qiangwei whispered with some regret.
Su Nan glanced at her, shook his head and said nothing.
This is not just a matter of one step.
Avigny's failure was almost inevitable.
In the wizarding heyday a thousand years ago, blood soul worms were not very rare creatures.
If one could achieve immortality by fusing with the blood of a blood soul worm, more powerful wizards would have figured it out long ago.
But in fact, no similar method has been heard of so far, including in the wizarding era many years later.
This shows that no one has ever succeeded from the beginning to the end, and the defects of the blood soul worm's bloodline are actually impossible to eradicate.
From the moment he merged with the blood of the blood soul worm, Avigni's fate was actually doomed.
"Don't feel sorry for this guy, he's not a good person."
Sunan said calmly:
"Have you forgotten about those blood soul bugs just now?"
Qiangwei was stunned for a moment, then quickly reacted and her face immediately became very ugly.
Avigni died hundreds of years ago. Those blood soul worms have been locked in the cave, unable to go out to find food, but they have survived to this day. This means that they had already devoured a large number of souls when Avigni was still alive.
How many creatures would have to be killed to extract enough souls to allow nearly a thousand blood soul worms to survive for hundreds of years without food or water?
Just thinking about it makes my scalp tingle! I'm afraid that Avigni's hands were stained with a lot of blood when he was alive!
Putting down the blood soul worm experiment notes, Sunan looked at the second notebook.
Turning to the first page, it says 'Genetic Modification and Breeding of Gemworms'.
Jewel bug? This name piqued Sunan's interest.
Scrolling down, the first thing in the notebook is that Avigni found a kind of insect that feeds on ore in the underground world.
Their physiological structure is very peculiar. They can decompose and digest the minerals swallowed into their stomachs, excrete the residue, and gather the essence on their backs, slowly forming a hard crystalline armor on their back shells, thereby greatly improving their survivability.
Avigni was very interested in this kind of insect. In order to verify an idea of his, he captured a large number of this insect, induced the insect's mutation with a radiation field, and then used magic to transform the internal organ structure of its body, so that the essence of the insect after digesting the ore would no longer condense into crystals, but become pure gems.
After hundreds of generations of breeding, the jewel bug was born.
The gems produced by gem bugs have the same natural spirituality as natural gems and can completely replace natural gems.
Su Nan and Qiang Wei were surprised and delighted
It goes without saying how important gems are to wizards (apprentices). Gems are used in many places.
However, gems are precious and rare. Even in southern Jiangsu, which has abundant resources, it often has to use them sparingly.
If there were a creature that could produce gems, it would be of great significance!
In addition, the notes also mentioned that gem insects would enter a dormant state when lacking food, during which time the energy required to sustain life would be reduced to an extremely low level, enough to survive for a hundred years.
The first things that came to Su Nan and Qiang Wei’s mind were the motionless insects they had just seen.
Its appearance and the crystals on its back shell are exactly the same as the jewel bug described in the notes.
“I didn’t expect these little things could produce gems.”
Rose's eyes suddenly became extremely hot when she looked at the insect in the cage, and then she felt a little regretful.
The jewel beetles had been dormant for too long, more than a hundred years, so that out of hundreds of jewel beetles, only six survived.
Fortunately, according to the notes, gem bugs can divide and reproduce.
Even if there is only one gem bug left, it can gradually multiply into a large group over time.
(End of this chapter)
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