Douluo Continent: The Book of Witness and Peerless Tang Sect

Chapter 187 The Pearl of Imagination and the Fusion of Martial Soul

Long You, who was in a deep sleep, automatically entered a deep sleep state. In Long You's sea of ​​consciousness, the martial spirit body that originally existed in the Pearl of Imagination silently merged with the Pearl of Imagination.

The reason for this change, and its impact on Longyou, remains unknown. However, judging from Longyou's still steady breathing, this change is unlikely to have too many negative effects in the short term.

For the entire afternoon, until dinner, Long You remained in a deep sleep, even eating his dinner curled up in bed, wrapped in a blanket. However, after dinner, Long You was forced to leave the soft bed that had been sealed with a "sealing spell."

This doesn't mean that Long You realized he needed to start working on the unfinished soul-guided power mecha fusion technology, but rather that Long You received a summons from his teacher.

Wang Yan, who spent the entire day at Xingluo Square, only had dinner after returning to the hotel before summoning the academy team members to the conference room again.

According to most students, Teacher Wang Yan called everyone together at this time to discuss tactics. However, Long You, who had just inexplicably recalled some memories from his past life, knew that Wang Yan actually wanted to organize a team-building activity.

Yawning and slumped on the table, watching his teammates go back to their rooms to change into their regular clothes with blank expressions, Long You once again drifted into a drowsy state.

Long You's state was abnormal, because He Caitou, who had also stayed up all night, had long since recovered, but Long You, with his supernatural ability to achieve deep sleep, hadn't recovered yet. This was definitely not normal. However, Long You, whose mind was currently foggy, was completely unaware of this abnormality.

After changing into their everyday clothes, Wang Yan led the seven members of the reserve team, along with Dai Yueheng and Ling Luochen, out of the Star Emperor Hotel and disappeared into the bustling crowd outside.

"Teacher Wang, where are we going?"

Although Huo Yuhao was considered a citizen of the Star Luo Empire and lived near Star Luo City, he genuinely knew nothing about the city itself. Standing amidst the crowds, he felt truly lost.

However, Wang Yan seemed to have a bad habit of keeping things mysterious, so when Huo Yuhao asked him, Wang Yan smiled but did not answer Huo Yuhao's question. "I'll take you somewhere, just follow me. Recently, everyone has been carrying out monitoring missions and participating in the competition, so everyone's nerves have been very tense. In order to better cope with the upcoming competition, let's relax tonight."

"Relax?"

Although Wang Yan did not use the evening to explain tactics to everyone, which already exceeded everyone's expectations, that level of surprise was nothing compared to the shock and impact of Wang Yan uttering the word "relax" now.

Even though no one truly believed Wang Yan's use of the word "relax," no one pressed him for more information. Despite Wang Yan's tactical blunder in the morning, everyone knew that his actions were undoubtedly aimed at helping the team achieve better results in the upcoming matches.

Although they arrived relatively late compared to the other team members, Wang Yan had clearly already thoroughly explored the area around the Star Emperor Hotel. After leading everyone through a series of twists and turns, the Shrek team successfully arrived at a sparsely populated area, and after crossing several more streets, they stopped in front of a pointed-roof building.

Long You turned his head and looked around. He recognized this place. According to Xingluo City's planning, this place was a key commercial area of ​​Xingluo City. In Long You's previous life, this kind of place had a fancy name: "CBD business district".

Looking again at the pointed building with a hammer pattern on the sign, Long You felt as if someone was poking his elbow.

Long You turned around and saw that it was Huo Yuhao poking him.

"Where is this place?"

Having endured much hardship in his childhood, Huo Yuhao's worldview and experience lagged behind his classmates. While the others already understood where they were, Huo Yuhao remained completely bewildered.

"This is an auction house. Look at this sign, a hammer that looks very finely carved. This symbol is a common symbol for auction houses on the continent."

In fact, across the entire continent, the only places that commonly use a hammer as a symbol, besides auction houses, are blacksmith shops. However, the hammer symbol used by blacksmith shops is much more rugged, and unless it's too late, the sound of metal being struck can always be heard around them.

"I see." Huo Yuhao lowered his eyelids slightly, looking a little embarrassed.

However, this embarrassment was only momentary. Huo Yuhao knew very well that he could not change his background. All he could do was to cultivate diligently and strive to become stronger. Only in this way could the wish that had been buried deep in his heart be realized.

Having realized where they were, almost all the trainees had the same question in their minds: "What are we here for? To attend an auction? Or should we just relax?"

Fortunately, Wang Yan, who had been keeping everyone in suspense, did not continue to leave them wondering. Instead, he turned around and said with a sigh, "The competition has been going on for several days now. Although you haven't watched many matches, I believe you have noticed some phenomena that have only appeared in this competition."

Soul tools appeared much more frequently. In this competition, the use of soul tools was no longer the exclusive domain of soul master academies; many soul master academies also began to use them.

Clearly, many academies and forces on the continent, like Shrek Academy, have taken notice of the power of soul tools.

Before coming here, I spoke with Elder Xuan and Dean Qian Duoduo to get a detailed understanding of everyone's performance during the past few months of intensive training. I know that everyone here may still be dismissive of using soul tools, or may not yet be able to integrate them effectively into their combat system, but you have fully recognized the power of soul tools and are not averse to using them in combat. Is that right?

"That's true. Actually, if we hadn't realized it so late and there hadn't been too much time, I would have wanted to bring some soul tools with me to this competition."

Faced with Wang Yan's final question, Dai Yueheng, once again acting as the captain of the Shrek team, answered first.

"That's good. The reason I brought you here today is because there will be a soul tool auction at this auction house tonight."

I know that Teacher Fanyu is currently equipping you with some suitable soul tools, but Gongyang's situation is special, and Teacher Fanyu's energy definitely needs to be focused on Gongyang first. We can't just wait passively; if we find suitable soul tools at the auction, we can use them temporarily.”

"Then what are we waiting for? Let's go in. It's really difficult for Teacher Fanyu to take care of so many of us by herself."

Again, it was Dai Yueheng. As the eldest son of the Duke of Baihu, regardless of his personal character, when faced with a situation that required making decisions and demonstrating responsibility, Dai Yueheng certainly did not back down and displayed a remarkable demeanor.

"Very good. Perhaps the perfect fusion between traditional Soul Masters and Soul Tools is still in the exploratory stage, but the development of anything always requires someone to take the first step. If everyone can demonstrate the benefits of fusing Martial Souls and Soul Tools in this competition, then I believe the antagonistic relationship between the Martial Soul Department and the Soul Tool Department within the academy will be greatly improved."

Okay, everyone's all set, right? If there are no problems, let's go in.

Seeing that everyone present was willing to agree with his theory, Wang Yan smiled and turned to lead everyone into the auction house.

Long You and He Caitou swayed back to the back of the group once again. As excellent soul masters, they didn't have a strong need for soul tools, so they weren't particularly looking forward to the auction. Instead, they continued to discuss the fusion of soul-powered mechs.

From the outside, the auction house appears anything but grand; in fact, it seems rather small compared to the other tall buildings around it. But only those who actually enter the auction house know that the ground-level structure is merely the entrance.

The floor, covered with a red carpet, was soft and silent to walk on, and a five-meter-wide staircase led straight down into the ground.

After walking up the stairs for about twenty meters, Shrek and his group finally saw the auction hall's ranking system. Here, they completed a series of rather tedious ranking procedures before finally receiving their own ranking tokens.

Next, the Shrek members, who have been deemed qualified to participate in the auction, will witness true luxury.

Ivory-white floor tiles, ivory-white pillars, walls covered in gold leaf and adorned with exquisite patterns—anyone standing inside can feel the allure of money.

Guided by the hostesses, Shrek Academy and his group arrived at Auction Hall No. 12. Since there were no Soul Tools of Level 6 or higher up among those being auctioned that evening, the auction was not of a high standard. Consequently, the procedures were not as complicated. After donning the white masks they had received from the registration desk, the group filed into the auction hall and found suitable seats.

After getting a glass of corn juice from the waiter, Long You frowned slightly and slumped into a comfortable chair in the auction house. He could feel his spirits sinking back into a drowsy state. He had only used his brain a little bit just now, and now he felt sleepy again.

【Xiao Yan, do you know what's wrong with me?】

If they were in a hotel, Long You would definitely choose to use his soul tool to get himself a full physical examination right now. However, since they are in an auction house, there are no suitable facilities for a physical examination, so Long You can only ask Xiao Yan.

Don't worry, Xiao You, it's not a bad thing. The reason you're feeling listless right now is because the Pearl of Imagination is merging with me.

[The Pearl of Imagination has merged with you?]

Long You was extremely surprised—no, he was unsure of his own emotions. All along, although Xiao Yan (Long You's martial soul) existed within the Pearl of Imagination, Long You knew that aside from a very limited connection, the two had essentially kept to themselves. So how had they started merging now?

According to Long You's plan, this Pearl of Imagination is the most important reason why he was able to retain his memories of his previous life and travel to this Douluo Continent world. It is also one of the most important cheat codes that enabled him to grow rapidly in the Douluo Continent world.

But what exactly is the connection between the Pearl of Imagination and my Martial Soul? Imagination, writer, witnessing the future, insightful analysis—these four words seem related, but what exactly is it? And what kind of opportunity led to the Pearl of Imagination merging with my Martial Soul?

Considering that his martial soul couldn't do it, and there was no need to deceive himself, and that his spiritual sense hadn't given any warning, Long You temporarily abandoned his plan to continue pondering. At this stage, Long You could feel that even the lake of his sea of ​​consciousness was calmer than usual, or rather, deathly still, making it completely unsuitable for thinking.

The incident involving the Pearl of Imagination caused Long You to lose focus, and by the time he came to his senses, the auction had already begun.

The auctioneer on the auction stage was a woman in her thirties. Her form-fitting, deep purple dress accentuated her beautiful curves, and her dignified and pretty face carried a faint smile.

The auctioneer didn't give a lengthy introduction, simply mentioning that there would be a small surprise at the end of the auction, and then got straight to the point.

The first soul tool to be auctioned was a level three soul ray soul tool. According to the auctioneer, the reason why this level three soul tool met the auction standards was because the soul tool master made some modifications to the core magic array when making this soul tool, giving the ordinary soul ray a paralyzing effect.

Although its level wasn't high, its effects were quite attractive to most low- to mid-level Soul Masters. However, for the Shrek Seven Devils and their group, this Soul Tool held absolutely no interest.

The seven members of the reserve team were mainly there to broaden their horizons. Since Xu Sanshi was the only one in the team who truly lacked any skill in crafting soul tools, the remaining members like Bei Bei and Long You would likely make their own if they wanted a soul tool. The real buyers at this auction were Dai Yueheng and Ling Luochen from the main team.

However, the Shrek Academy's lack of interest in purchasing did not mean that the others in the auction house were also uninterested. The paralyzing effect was quite tempting, and the final transaction price reached over two thousand gold soul coins.