The abilities he originally possessed, but through forbidden spells, could make these abilities even more outstanding and expand their upper limits.
This was the allure of forbidden spells.
Realizing this, Xu Yuan sought ways to develop many of his soul skills into forbidden spells.
At the same time, he was searching for an opportunity—an opportunity to transform his soul rings and soul skills into forbidden spells.
In Xu Yuan's previous theories, soul rings were bridges connecting soul masters to laws. Because of soul rings, soul masters could directly master corresponding soul skills, as if they were innate instincts, similar to divine blessings. The only difference was that different soul rings corresponded to different laws or combinations of laws.
Of course, only hundred-thousand-year-level soul rings truly touched upon laws, and even then, only extensions of them.
Xu Yuan himself possessed multiple beast soul rings. He knew that no matter how much they evolved, soul ring skills would never become forbidden spells—they were ultimately limited.
Soul rings themselves were the limitation of soul skills.
Even god-level soul rings still had restrictions.
To achieve the effect of a forbidden spell through soul rings, a soul master must 'modify' the soul rings to a certain extent.
This concept wasn't unfamiliar to Xu Yuan. In fact, when he proposed the path to godhood, he discussed with Yun Ming what direction post-hundred-level soul masters should take in cultivation.
At least for now, the god-level path Yun Ming pioneered focused on strengthening divine soul power without the subsequent limitations of soul rings. Of course, Xu Yuan also asked Yun Ming about it—every ten levels after reaching a hundred, there was still a soul ring slot. However, god-level soul masters had already transcended the limitations of soul rings to some extent and wouldn't be restricted anymore.
During their discussion, Xu Yuan believed that post-hundred-level efforts shouldn't focus entirely on new soul skills.
It didn't mean new soul skills couldn't be acquired.
New soul skills could and should be acquired to fill gaps and further enrich and perfect one's abilities, which was necessary.
However, the focus couldn't solely rely on new soul skills.
In Xu Yuan's understanding, after achieving godhood, cultivating soul skills should involve exploring and combining them, developing them into true ultimate techniques unique to oneself. These ultimate techniques weren't just god-level soul skills from god-level soul rings.
With a deeper understanding of forbidden spells, Xu Yuan felt they aligned perfectly with his intentions.
Developing soul skills into forms akin to forbidden spells, using soul rings and soul skills as a foundation to harness laws, thereby infinitely amplifying the power of soul skills.
However, to achieve this, Xu Yuan currently needed to leverage the magician system and abilities.
Of course, this was only for the current stage.
After three months of seclusion, Xu Yuan gained insight into the key to combining soul master soul skills.
"Runes."
"Although only a few of my Heavenly Origin Brush's soul rings are composed of runes, it doesn't mean other normal soul rings can't cultivate runes."
Like Xu Yuan's Primordial Rune, which originated from the Five Elements Runes, and the soul ring containing the Five Elements Runes was obtained through normal means. Despite various incidents and opportunities along the way, overall, it was considered a normal soul ring, yet it allowed Xu Yuan to cultivate runes.
This meant that even normal soul rings had the potential to cultivate a core rune.
When different runes combined, they formed combination techniques. Through runes, complete paths could be constructed.
Using these paths to express one's understanding of laws and harness the power of laws was the answer Xu Yuan conceived.
However, this path still required practice.
Fortunately, Xu Yuan wasn't short on experimental materials—his Heavenly Origin Brush martial soul.
His Heavenly Origin Brush martial soul already had several ready-made runes, and the compatibility points between these runes were very evident, making it a perfect subject for studying rune combinations.
Moreover, his multiple runes belonged to Shanhe, which possessed a scroll world. Within this world, these runes were part of the framework of the world's laws, already possessing the prototype of rune combinations, and showed effectiveness in harnessing laws.
"Unfortunately, three months is still too short, and my understanding of forbidden spells isn't deep enough."
Honestly, Xu Yuan's own understanding of laws wasn't profound enough.
His runes were only basic expressions of laws. Even his two nearly real and nearly complete frameworks of laws were merely prototypes, far from truly rivaling cosmic laws—perhaps not even close to matching the normal laws of a plane.
As Xu Yuan pondered, Professor Zhang brought him back to the mountaintop where the spaceship was located.
Silver-white all over, like a spatial elf blending seamlessly with its surroundings.
Approaching, Xu Yuan already felt the summoning of this mech-spaceship.
"This spaceship was built for you, and it represents our alliance's hopes for cosmic exploration, so we want to name it the Probe Abyss."
Xu Yuan's lips twitched.
The name was straightforward. Though not particularly elegant, it wasn't unpleasant either.
"Let's go with that."
Professor Zhang sighed in relief after receiving Xu Yuan's approval.
Though named, it still required Xu Yuan's permission since this was Xu Yuan's mech, and the true naming rights rested with him. They merely had the right to suggest, given they built the spaceship.
Thankfully, Xu Yuan didn't care about the spaceship's name and directly adopted their suggestion.
Xu Yuan stepped forward, touching Probe Abyss, which transformed into a ball of light and integrated into his body.
By now, Xu Yuan's body had fused with numerous metals.
Excluding Jue, which was fused in spirit form and didn't occupy much space, his battle armor and mechs were already quite large. Now, he added another spaceship-mech.
Ordinary soul masters found it challenging to fuse even a single set of battle armor, and non-god-level mechs rarely achieved full spiritual forging.
Indeed, even black-grade mechs often had parts that weren't spiritually forged.
Only god-level mechs, crafted entirely with spiritual forging to ensure tight integration between mech pilot and mech, achieved this.
Xu Yuan alone fused a set of battle armor and two mechs. Moreover, the spaceship-mech was massive—the largest model available. The burden was immense.
However, his robust blood energy allowed him to fully bear the fusion with so much metal.
"Professor Zhang, continue researching those technologies. I'll be leaving first."
Professor Zhang didn't ask whether Xu Yuan had found a spatial wormhole when taking the spaceship.
Such an obvious question would be pointless to ask—he wouldn't foolishly inquire about something so apparent. It was better to keep it in mind.
They needed to wait for Xu Yuan to bring back further news.
Professor Zhang believed that if Xu Yuan discovered useful intelligence during his exploration, he would surely share it with them. After all, technically, the technical support for Xu Yuan's cosmic exploration spaceship came from them. Communicating their needs would help facilitate further cosmic exploration.
Leaving Tian Ding City, Xu Yuan immediately returned to Shrek City.
He sealed his soul power.
The seal rune activated, suppressing the fluctuations of his soul power within the scroll world. Xu Yuan directly completed the sealing of his soul power.
Through the Demon Gate, he entered the Demon Plane again, feeling immense pressure.
Though he sealed his soul power to arrive here, his strength couldn't be perfectly hidden in the face of the plane's laws and was suppressed by them.
This sense of suppression was particularly uncomfortable. Without lingering, Xu Yuan registered at Hell City and entered the Hell Plane.
Rex's divine consciousness emerged.
"The blood mage system is becoming increasingly refined. Unfortunately, it seems the Blood Demon God Realm is truly gone."
Rex's words were filled with emotion.
Curious, Xu Yuan asked, "What was the Blood Demon God Realm like? I mean their style of action. How many god-kings were there in the god realm?"
After some thought, Rex answered.
"We know little about the Blood Demon God Realm in our Holy Heart Plane. We only know there should be one god-king in this god realm, but we can confirm this god-king wasn't the realm's creator. Where the creator is now, or whether he's still in closed-door cultivation within the god realm, is uncertain."
Xu Yuan nodded.
In other words, there were at least two god-kings.
As for where the Blood Demon God Realm's creator, the Blood Demon God-King, was now, there was no need to consider it.
Since such a god-king existed and there was no news of his demise, he should be counted as a potential force.
"The Blood Demon God Realm excelled in warfare. All deities were combat-oriented, extremely brave, and continuously expanded into surrounding star systems. Based on our speculation, after occupying our Holy Heart star system, the Blood Demon God Realm hoped to cultivate another god-king."
The larger the territory a god realm controlled, the more resources it possessed, the more faith it collected, and the more powerful individuals it could accommodate. Expanding the god realm naturally enhanced its strength.
The Blood Demon God Realm chose this method to strengthen itself, and the results were significant.
However, when confronting the Holy Heart star system, they encountered temporal-spatial turbulence and disappeared without a trace.
From Rex's words, Xu Yuan roughly inferred Rex's original purpose.
This guy should be considered a vanguard force.
The Holy Heart star system and the Blood Demon God Realm were opposing forces. Upon discovering a spatial wormhole, they needed a vanguard force to scout.
No wonder his presence immediately drew the attention of the Blood Demon God Realm's deities and led to their targeting.
"The Hell Plane is a newly formed world. The emergence of the blood mage system made this plane a key cultivation target for the Blood Demon God Realm. Various deities left their bloodlines here but didn't leave any divine inheritance."
Only strong bloodlines could nurture sufficiently powerful blood mages, thereby developing a complete blood mage system.
Divine interference would make this system less natural, potentially causing an excellent cultivation system to fail midway.
However, despite knowing this, the deities of the Blood Demon God Realm couldn't resist interfering with the Hell Plane's development, investing in blood mages who contracted blood beasts with their respective bloodline descendants.
This investment resulted in struggles within the blood mage world, leading to hierarchies among blood beast bloodlines and even blood mages hunting blood beasts.
"This is why I said that the refinement of the Hell Plane's blood mage system suggests the Blood Demon God Realm has likely disappeared."
The development of the blood mage system remained very natural, showing no signs of artificial interference, which explained everything.
"Perhaps in another ten thousand years, the Hell Plane will have the potential to birth a complete system for the strongest beings below the god level—like your Douluo Continent, able to stably produce a certain number of Ultimate Douluos."
Xu Yuan nodded.
He didn't waste more time discussing the Hell Plane with Rex.
"What are the coordinates of the spatial wormhole you mentioned?"
Within the Hell Plane, Xu Yuan was still under suppression.
"Don't rush. My coming to the Hell Plane naturally means there are sufficient benefits here."
Xu Yuan realized.
He almost forgot—this Rex was a rather competent merchant.
If he chose to come here, it was impossible he didn't have his eyes on something.
"Is there anything in the Hell Plane that can interest a supergod-level magician like you?" Xu Yuan gave a skeptical look.
"What do you think of the blood mage system?"
"Very excellent."
"That's right. The contract law of the blood mage system is quite unique—it's the most natural and perfect type of contract among many acquired contracts I know. My goal is to study the contract method of the blood mage system, analyze the plane's contract laws, and develop a corresponding contract forbidden spell."
Xu Yuan understood.
So that was it.
At the same time, his expression became serious.
This was the magician system!
It could truly assimilate all systems for its use.
If they saw a system they liked, they'd directly research its core laws, replicate it in the form of a forbidden spell, and integrate it into their own system.
Simply unreasonable.
Although the core laws of different cultivation systems were unique to each plane, the internal laws of planes were all nurtured by the universe. Even if direct laws didn't exist in the universe, fundamental laws based on plane core laws did.
Xu Yuan knew that Rex's talk of researching contract laws meant analyzing the composition of contract laws and attempting to replicate the effects of blood mage contracts by combining fundamental laws of the universe.
"How far along are you in your research?"
"Hehe, I initially planned to review a few contract forbidden spells from our Holy Heart Plane and wait for the Hell Plane to develop further. Once the blood mage system reaches at least the seventh rank, I'll improve upon our Holy Heart Plane's contract forbidden spells to create a blood mage contract forbidden spell."
"So, you haven't started researching the blood mage contract?" Xu Yuan was speechless, looking at Rex with doubt-filled eyes.
Are you reliable?
After all this talk, it turns out you're not even a magician specializing in contracts?
Not specializing in contracts, why are you so interested in the blood mage contract?
Changing allegiances?
"The profits the contract system can generate are beyond your imagination." Rex revealed a mysterious gaze, speaking earnestly.
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