area51novel Chapter 233 One stone stirs up waves of sun and moon
Chapter 233 One stone stirs up waves of sun and moon
Normally, taming spirit beasts is extremely difficult. These intelligent, sentient beings are unlike the livestock in Long You's pastures, who were powerless to resist. Unfortunately, beasts are beasts; some are intelligent, powerful, and difficult to control, while others are foolish, weak, and easy to manage.
Perhaps for ordinary people, even some herbivorous soul beasts or even half-soul beasts can harm them if they are pushed too far. However, for soul masters, especially great soul masters with two or more soul rings, many soul beasts are still very easy to control if they put their mind to it.
After several rounds of selection by Long You, the main types of spirit beasts to be tamed at the spirit beast ranch have been determined. Now, all Long You needs to do is capture breeding beasts. Once Xiao Muyang, whom Long You dispatched, has finished capturing the breeding beasts, the ranch here should be fully operational.
Long You can catch a few to feast on, and then raise them for about a month. The number of those rabbit-type soul beasts will definitely double.
Incidentally, Long You has not wasted these past few months. Although all his operations seem to be laying the foundation for this new continental base, he has actually completed the underlying architecture of the War God Palace server (high-end objects like the virtual universe that involve the laws of the universe cannot be developed for the time being, so let's focus on the War God Palace first, and at most change the way to log in to the War God Palace to use a smartwatch). It can be said that with the support of resources, Long You's plan is proceeding in an orderly manner.
Now that we've arrived, we can temporarily shift our focus back to the original Douluo Continent. For the past few months, perhaps due to the significant losses suffered by the Holy Spirit Cult at Shrek Academy's gates, the entire Douluo Continent has been remarkably calm. Minor incidents have occurred frequently, but none have generated widespread discussion across the continent.
Our focus shifts to the Sun Moon Empire, specifically to Mingdu. In this most modern city on the planet, there stands a pawnshop with a fairly renowned reputation. When it first opened, its business model pioneered a new direction for the pawnshop industry. Because it was a soul tool pawnshop, the owner only accepted soul tools.
Mingdu is a city built upon soul tools, and the density of soul masters in this metropolis is undoubtedly the highest on the continent. Logically speaking, given the Sun Moon Empire's emphasis on training soul masters, the soul masters in Mingdu should all be living a relatively leisurely life. However, if this world could simply operate according to reason, there wouldn't be so many stories.
Every Soul Master's growth is built upon a foundation of Gold Soul Coins. Soul Masters backed by powerful factions can more easily acquire the rare metal resources needed for their growth, but those who work independently often struggle financially. Without sufficient financial support, they may not even be able to raise enough money for the raw materials to create Soul Tools for sale.
For these impoverished Soul Masters, the only Soul Tools they possess are their means of survival and earning a living; they cannot be sold casually. This pawnshop's target is precisely these Soul Masters' indispensable Soul Tools. They can't sell the Soul Tools, but they need money. That's easy: they can simply come to the pawnshop and use them as collateral.
After the mortgage procedures are completed, the soul tool will be stored in the pawn shop's display case, but it still nominally belongs to the original owner. Once the repayment deadline arrives, the original owner can use the money borrowed from the pawn shop to redeem their mortgaged soul tool.
Up to this point, this pawnshop operates no differently from ordinary pawnshops, and it cannot be said to have created a new form of pawnshop. The real special feature of this pawnshop is its "insurance".
The word "insurance" was a familiar one to Long You in his previous life, but in this world of Douluo Continent, it was quite foreign. When the owner of the pawnshop first explained the insurance business to the Soul Master who came to pawn his Soul Tool, the Soul Master was quite puzzled.
When signing a live pawn mortgage agreement, if the Soul Master is willing to explain in detail the Soul Tool he is going to make next, and keeps the newly made Soul Tool in the pawn shop for at least one month after it is successfully made, then the pawn shop is willing to pay for the Soul Master's Soul Tool making experiments multiple times.
To put it simply, besides providing the Soul Master with funds matching the collateral, the pawnshop will also provide additional funds without collateral if the Soul Master has exhausted all the collateral funds and still fails to succeed. The price for receiving this additional funding is that, after the Soul Tool is successfully created, the Soul Master must leave the newly created Soul Tool in the pawnshop for at least one month free of charge.
Frankly, this insurance business is extremely unreliable. After all, the pawnshop owner doesn't actually have the resources or means to verify whether the Soul Masters who borrowed money from him actually succeeded in creating Soul Tools. Without collateral, whether the loans he made could be recovered depends entirely on the conscience of those Soul Masters. For a businessman, this is simply an unreliable act of charity; it can't be called a business operation, it's just foolishly throwing money away.
Shortly after this "insurance" business was launched, almost all the pawnshop owners in Mingdu were laughing at their peers. But to everyone's surprise, this unreliable "insurance" business miraculously persisted. Over the years, it even gathered a large number of talented independent soul masters within the pawnshop's sphere of influence, becoming a well-known soul tool trading market in Mingdu.
After all that, you can see that the owner of this pawnshop is definitely not an ordinary person, at least not the kind who only thinks about making money. That's right, the owner of this pawnshop is Long Guozhang, Long You's grandfather.
As the head of a family and a high-level Soul Master (at the time of Long Guozhang's arrival in the Sun Moon Empire), Long Guozhang was not short of money. He came to the Sun Moon Empire to see all kinds of Soul Tools. In Long Guozhang's view, being able to use money to buy more time to learn Soul Tools, and even to do favors in advance for those worthwhile independent Soul Masters (there are always a few conscientious ones who will leave their Soul Tools in the pawnshop after they succeed), was a very worthwhile approach.
In short, the small pawnshop run by Long Guozhang under an assumed name was quite well-known in Mingdu. At this time, the pawnshop was, as usual, crowded with Soul Masters of all ages. Among these Soul Masters, a young one, whose features still showed obvious signs of naiveté, went completely unnoticed. No one saw that after admiring a gun-type Soul Tool, this young Soul Master left an inconspicuous chip in the gun's magazine.
Perhaps you've already realized something. That's right, this shop, originally run by Long Guozhang, naturally became a hidden communication station between the exchange students and the Shrek Academy after their arrival.
Normally, those who come here to deliver information are ordinary students among the exchange students from Shrek Academy. These students are talented, but it's already difficult enough for them to learn everything that the Sun Moon Royal Soul Master Academy has made public. They can't be expected to uncover anything deeper, so these students don't care whether the Sun Moon Royal Soul Master Academy notices that they are delivering information and becomes wary.
But now, this seemingly inexperienced Soul Instructor is none other than Huo Yuhao, the academy's hopeful student who has been entrusted with the task of effectively stealing the advanced technology of Mingde Hall. Clearly, this intelligence is of utmost importance; Huo Yuhao, upon receiving the news, couldn't wait any longer and personally came to deliver it.
The academy staff, who had been keeping an eye on the shop, obviously noticed this as well. After Huo Yuhao turned and left, they immediately locked onto the display case of the gun-type soul tool. Soon after, a pawnshop clerk ran out, pretending to charge the soul tool, and took away the information magnetic disk.
The contents of the magnetic strip were quickly deciphered in the living space behind the pawnshop. After reading the information on the magnetic strip, Long Guozhang, who was in charge of the pawnshop and also a guest elder of the Sea God Pavilion, changed his expression almost immediately.
"So that's how it is. No wonder the Holy Spirit Cult didn't react at all after suffering such a big loss at Shrek Academy. It turns out that this is what they were planning."
This news must be relayed to Shrek Academy as soon as possible, but before that, I think I should contact Xiao You first. Yu Hao's information is likely delayed, so Xiao You needs to be extra careful.
A few thoughts raced through Long Guozhang's mind, but his hands didn't stop moving. Regardless of whether he wanted to inform Long You or not, Long Guozhang wouldn't let the information Huo Yuhao had sent out so quickly remain in his hands for any longer.
About two days later, the intelligence information from the Sun Moon Empire finally appeared on Long You's mobile phone.
Recently, high-ranking evil spirit masters from the Holy Spirit Cult have been appearing in Mingde Hall, and both sides have been frequently entering a soul-guided factory that Mingde Hall built some time ago. According to my investigation, the factory contains a soul-guided warship that is over 100 meters long.
I overheard the Soul Guidance Masters who were modifying the Soul Guidance Warship discussing that during the modification process, they needed to pay special attention to the stability of the warship during long-distance voyages, as the Sun Moon Empire intended to use it to search for overseas lands.
— Huo Yuhao
"Hmph, exploring new continents, the Sun and Moon Empire has indeed set its sights on searching for them. Why not earlier or later, but of all times, to obtain clues about new continents? It's too obvious."
But it doesn't matter. Many things are like this: if you're slow on one step, you'll be slow on every step. Seafaring is no joke. I've been searching for a week by air. If the people of the Sun Moon Empire don't spend half a year at sea, they're practically wasting my cheat code. And even if the Sun Moon Empire could accurately locate my continent, and even if they did, in that much time, I would have already obtained what I wanted.”
Looking at the information displayed on his phone screen, a cold smile crept across Long You's lips. Everything on his end was on track, and the pace would only accelerate. Six months later, the entire New World would be incorporated into the integrated prevention and control system Long You had built. At that time, Long You might be powerless to stop the arrival of the Sun Moon Empire and its people, but he was confident that he could influence and mislead them on this continent, ultimately causing them to leave in a sorry state.
After replying to the person who sent the message that he would be careful, Long You turned his gaze to the due east of the continent. According to the information transmitted back by the soul-guided probes that had been scattered throughout the continent, Long You knew that there was a blessed land in that direction.
"A blessed land, a miraculous place where nature's spirits and beauty converge. I wonder if I have the chance to find rare and precious treasures in this blessed land. More than half a year has passed, and even with Xiao Yan's help, my soul power level has only just reached level 53. It's too slow. The speed at which my soul power level increases has greatly restricted my growth."
My obsession with finding new continents stems largely from my desire to discover rare and precious materials that can rapidly and without negative side effects enhance my soul power. After all, the Ice and Fire Yin-Yang Well is practically a god-king's private garden!
The camera moves to the Sea God Pavilion in the inner courtyard of Shrek Academy. Thanks to the rapid development of the academy's communication soul tool technology in recent years, coupled with the academy's tireless efforts in designing communication stations, news from the Sun Moon Empire had already reached Shrek Academy that afternoon.
However, because almost all the elders of the Sea God Pavilion had their own tasks recently, even though Shrek Academy issued an emergency assembly notice, it took a whole night to gather all the elders of the Sea God Pavilion together using a combination of online and offline methods.
"A new continent, a new continent. When Xiao You said he wanted to find a new continent, I didn't pay much attention, but now it seems the allure of this new continent is extraordinary. The Sun Moon Empire has once again outpaced us!"
As early as when everyone was gathered, the elders who remained at the academy had already informed them of the information Huo Yuhao had sent back. Now that everyone had assembled, Dean Xian Lin'er, who had recently made several trips to the Sun Moon Empire, remarked with a sigh.
"We have indeed neglected the New World, but falling behind the Sun Moon Empire is not necessarily the case. At least the Sun Moon Empire is still in the exploration stage of the New World, and they may not even be sure of its existence. But we are different. Because of Xiao You's actions, we have already found the New World."