Chapter 108 Immortality with fatal flaws
With the protection of the Ring of Extreme Protection, Sunan can attack with confidence.
Facing the extremely threatening creatures like the Blood Soul Bug, he did not hold back at all and immediately activated the Ring of Disaster on his left hand.
The four rings flashed with light at the same time.
Four huge gray claws appeared in the void in an instant, passing through the swarm of insects like a gust of wind sweeping fallen leaves.
In an instant, countless Blood Soul Bugs fell to the ground like dumplings in the water.
The dense swarm of insects suddenly became much sparser.
Immediately afterwards, a large amount of silver metal liquid overflowed from Sunan's body again, turning into sharp cones, which suddenly shot out in all directions with him as the center, and instantly killed hundreds of Blood Soul Bugs.
Under Sunan's relentless and fierce offensive, the swarm of insects decreased rapidly at an astonishing speed.
In just over half a minute, Sunan cleared the Blood Soul Bugs around him and turned to look at Qiangwei on the other side.
The latter's situation was much more embarrassing.
Qiangwei played all her cards, but she only killed less than a hundred blood soul insects, and there were still hundreds around her.
At this time, her exotic plants had been devoured, and now she could only rely on magic items to resist the attack of the insect swarm.
It was also because most of the blood soul insects were attracted by Sunan that she could hold on until now.
After Sunan came to support, the two quickly cleaned up the remaining insect swarm.
The remaining few blood soul insects were locked up by Sunan in an iron cage made temporarily with fine iron.
Such a rare creature must be taken back for careful study.
After escaping from danger, Qiangwei breathed a sigh of relief, turned her head to look at the place where Sunan had just fought, and 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 made her secretly shocked.
After a battle, the defense of two of Sunan's extreme protection rings was completely emptied, and they needed to be recharged before they could be used again.
The defense of another one was consumed 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, the injuries were not serious. They could self-repair by returning to the base and placing them in the earth vein node to absorb energy.
About half of the mental power is left, and the magic pattern core can be used for about one minute.
In general, most of the combat power is left.
After having a bottom line in his heart, 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 a worm nest. There are dense honeycomb-like small holes on the wall, and there are still many shells of blood soul worms left inside.
After checking and finding that there are no remaining blood soul worms, Sunan relaxed a little.
If there is another group of blood soul worms, he will have to consider whether to retreat temporarily.
Qiangwei also breathed a sigh of relief. She didn't want to face those terrible insects again anyway.
Coming out of the left passage, the two turned around and entered the right passage.
Behind the passage was also a room that had been transformed into an insect nest, with insects lying in the dense holes on the wall.
When they first saw this scene, Sunan and Qiangwei subconsciously tensed their bodies and took a fighting stance, but soon they found that it was not a blood soul insect, but a kind of insect that looked like a large seven-spotted ladybug, with a layer of crystals covering its back shell.
They lay motionless in the hole, as if they were in a deep sleep.
Sunan walked forward, carefully took out an insect, observed it for a while, and shook his head at Qiangwei next to him.
"Dead."
There was no life breath in the insect.
The two then checked one by one and found that most of the insects were dead, and only six of them still had a trace of life breath, but they were like candlelight in the wind, so weak that they seemed to dissipate at any time.
Sunan thought about it and put these insects in the iron cage.
After leaving the insect nest, the two began to search those rooms one by one.
The first room was a warehouse, with more than ten shelves filled with various materials.
Just as they expected, most of the materials had deteriorated and could not be used because of the long time.
Only a small amount of rare metals were still intact.
Then there was the meditation room, indoor plantation and potion room, but unfortunately nothing was found.
It was not until they entered a place that seemed to be a spell practice room that they found something.
The whole practice room was covered with dust, and the walls, floors and ceilings were full of potholes and cracks, looking like they had experienced 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 it must have expired after such a long time.
"Is it the owner of this place?"
Qiangwei pointed to the rings worn on the corpse's hand bones, and the enchanted runes on them became blurred.
"Maybe." Su Nan's eyes swept over the traces of battle in the practice room, "It is possible that there was another person here."
After checking the corpses 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 were both excited.
Obviously, this is a laboratory.
As a place for wizards (apprentices) to conduct experimental research, wizards' (apprentices') experimental notes are usually placed here.
In the absence of a study room, the notes in the laboratory are likely to be the most valuable things in this cave.
After a search, the two found several notebooks.
The paper of the notebooks is made of special materials, and even after so many years, there is no corrosion and weathering.
Opening the first notebook, there is a line of big words written on the first page.
"Blood Extraction and Fusion of Blood Soul Worms"!
Sunan and Qiangwei looked at each other in surprise.
They have experienced the weirdness and horror of blood soul worms, but they didn't expect that there are people who want to extract and fuse the blood of this monster.
Continuing to read down, the name signed is "Avigni Lucas".
Behind it 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 notebook, Avigni discovered the blood soul worm by chance.
This strange creature will follow its instinct to devour the flesh and soul of all living creatures, and use it as nutrients to survive.
As long as there are enough souls, they can even live forever and will not die.
Avigni has done experiments, and an ordinary human soul can make the blood soul worm live for a month without food or water.
If it is replaced with the soul of a more powerful creature, it can live longer.
After discovering this, Avigni came up with the idea of integrating the blood soul worm's blood ability of devouring souls to prolong life into his own body, so as to gain immortality.
And he quickly put it into action.
After cultivating the blood soul worm for a period of time and obtaining enough samples, Avigni immediately started the experiment.
Judging from the time marked on the notes, the entire experiment lasted for more than 20 years, and there were no less than a hundred failures during this period. In the end, Avigni successfully integrated the blood of the blood soul worm and gained the ability to devour souls to prolong life.
Seeing this, Sunan and Qiangwei looked at each other, and both of them showed amazement in their eyes.
Immortality!
This is the dream of many wizard apprentices.
Only with a long enough life span can they realize the dream of becoming a wizard.
It's just that it's so difficult to achieve immortality.
Most wizard apprentices can only extend their lifespan as much as possible.
But Avigni has truly achieved this and achieved immortality.
In comparison, the need to devour souls is nothing.
This is just like people needing to eat and vampires needing to suck blood. There is no flaw in the face of a long lifespan.
"But if Avigni has achieved immortality, who is the corpse in the practice room?" Qiangwei asked in confusion.
Sunan shook his head. He couldn't figure this out for the time being.
With doubts, the two continued to read on.
After the experiment was successful, Avigni was obviously in ecstasy, and excitement and complacency were revealed between the lines.
After that, he cultivated more blood soul worms as research samples, wanting to further strengthen the bloodline ability, reduce dependence on soul energy, and achieve perfect immortality.
But this research did not succeed.
Not long after the fusion of the blood soul worm bloodline, Avigni soon noticed something wrong.
His soul was polluted!
After a series of experiments and investigations, Avigni finally found the reason.
That is, there is actually a fatal flaw in the blood of the blood soul worm.
Continuous devouring of souls will cause the soul to be polluted, gradually twisted, violent, and eventually lose reason and fall into madness.
This is why the blood soul worm will attack crazily when it sees creatures with flesh and soul.
They have long lost their independent consciousness, leaving only the instinct of killing and survival.
And Avigni is now gradually experiencing this process.
The good news is that he discovered it early, as long as he stops devouring souls, he will not be polluted again and continue to maintain his sanity.
The bad news is that because his soul has been polluted, it is almost impossible for him to be promoted to a wizard in this life.
Avigni, who realized this, fell into despair.
After that, he frantically searched for the ability to eliminate the blood soul worm's blood defect, but unfortunately he could not do it.
This lasted for more than ten years, and Avigni gradually felt that he was about to reach the end of his life.
He was unwilling to die like this, so he embarked on the path of devouring souls again, 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 twisted madness, and the degree gradually deepened. The last few pages were filled with various meaningless graffiti, which made people feel inexplicably creepy.
After reading the notes, Sunan couldn't help but sigh.
The ending of Avigni was obvious.
In the end, he still couldn't find a solution and finally lost himself in madness.
Now it seems that the traces in the spell practice room were not left by the battle, but probably caused by Avigni's own madness.
The corpse leaning against the wall was exactly Avigni.
"What a pity, there is only one last step left." Rose whispered with some regret.
Sunan glanced at her, shook his head and said nothing.
This is not just one step away.
Avigni's failure is almost inevitable.
In the wizard's heyday a thousand years ago, blood soul worms were not very rare creatures.
If merging the blood of blood soul worms could achieve immortality, more powerful wizards would have researched it long ago.
But in fact, no similar method has been heard of so far, including the wizard era many years later.
This shows that no one has succeeded from the beginning to the end, and the defects of the blood soul worm bloodline cannot be eradicated at all.
From the moment of fusing the blood soul worm bloodline, Avigni's fate was actually doomed.
"Don't sympathize with this guy, he is not a good person."
Su Nan said lightly:
"Have you forgotten those blood soul worms just now?"
Qiangwei was stunned, and 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 and cannot go out to find food, but they can survive until now, which means that when Avigni was still there, they had already devoured a large number of souls.
Enough souls for nearly a thousand blood soul worms to survive for hundreds of years without eating or drinking, how many creatures must be killed to extract them?
It's scalp-numbing to think about it!
Avigni's hands must have been stained with a lot of blood when he was alive!
Putting down the experiment notes of the blood soul worm, Sunan looked at the second notebook.
Turning to the first page, it said "Genetic modification and cultivation of gem worms".
Gem worms?
This name aroused Sunan's interest.
Continuing to flip down, the beginning of the content of the notebook was that Avigni found a kind of worm that lived by swallowing ore in the underground world.
Their physiological structure is very peculiar. They can decompose and digest the ore swallowed into their stomachs, excrete the residues, and gather the essence on their backs, slowly forming a hard crystal armor on the back shell, thereby greatly improving their survival ability.
Avigni was very interested in this kind of worm. In order to verify one of his ideas, he captured a large number of this worm, induced the mutation of the worm with a radiation force field, and then transformed the internal organs of its body through magic, so that the essence of the worm after digesting the ore no longer condensed into crystals, but turned into pure gems.
After hundreds of generations of cultivation, the gem worm was born.
The gems produced by gem bugs have the same natural spirituality as natural gems, and can completely replace natural gems.
Sunan and Qiangwei were surprised and happy.
It goes without saying how important gems are to wizards (apprentices). Gems are used in many places.
But gems are precious and rare. Even Sunan, who has abundant resources, often has to save them.
If there is a creature that can produce gems, how significant it is!
In addition, the notes also mentioned that gem bugs will enter a dormant state when they lack food. During this period, the energy required to maintain life will be reduced to an extremely low level, enough to survive for a hundred years.
Sunan and Qiangwei immediately thought of the motionless bugs they had just seen.
Its appearance and the crystals on its back shell are exactly the same as the gem bugs described in the notes.
"I didn't expect these little things to produce gems."
Qiangwei's eyes suddenly became particularly hot when she looked at the bugs in the cage, and then she felt a little sorry.
The gem worms hibernated for too long, more than a hundred years, so that out of hundreds of gem worms, only six survived.
Fortunately, according to the notes, gem worms can divide and reproduce.
Even if there is only one gem worm left, it can gradually multiply into a large group over time.
