Synthesis Wizard 108

With the protection of the Extreme Guard Ring, Su Nan could confidently unleash his attacks.

Facing the highly threatening Blood Soul Worms, he held nothing back, immediately activating the Disaster Ring on his left hand.

Four rings flashed simultaneously.

In an instant, four massive gray claws materialized from the void, sweeping through the swarm of worms like a gust of wind scattering fallen leaves.

In a flash, countless Blood Soul Worms fell to the ground like dumplings dropped into water.

The dense swarm instantly thinned significantly.

Following closely, silver metallic liquid once again overflowed from Su Nan’s body, transforming into sharp spikes that shot out in all directions, centered on him, instantly annihilating hundreds of Blood Soul Worms.

Under Su Nan’s relentless and fierce onslaught, the swarm rapidly dwindled at an alarming pace.

In just over half a minute, Su Nan had cleared the Blood Soul Worms around him, turning his head to look at Rose on the other side.

Her situation was far more precarious.

Rose had unleashed all her trump cards, yet she had only managed to kill less than a hundred Blood Soul Worms, with hundreds more still surrounding her.

By this time, her peculiar plants had been devoured, and she could only rely on magical items to desperately resist the swarm’s attacks.

Thankfully, most of the Blood Soul Worms had been drawn to Su Nan, allowing her to hold out until now.

With Su Nan’s support, they quickly finished off the remaining worms.

The few remaining Blood Soul Worms were imprisoned by Su Nan in an iron cage he had hastily constructed from fine steel.

Such rare creatures needed to be taken back for thorough research.

Relieved from danger, Rose breathed a sigh of relief and turned to look at the place where Su Nan had been fighting. Seeing the thick layer of worm corpses on the ground, she couldn’t help but gasp.

No matter how many times she witnessed it, the power Su Nan displayed always left her secretly astonished.

After the battle, the durability of two of Su Nan’s Extreme Guard Rings had been completely drained, requiring recharging before they could be used again.

The durability of another one was more than half depleted.

The four Disaster Rings also needed to be recharged before they could be used again.

The two Steel Magic Puppets had suffered varying degrees of damage, but fortunately, the injuries were not severe. Returning them to the base and placing them at the earth vein node to absorb energy would allow them to self-repair.

His spiritual power was also about half remaining, allowing him to use the Magic Emblem Core for about a minute.

Overall, his combat strength was still more than half.

Feeling confident, Su Nan held a high-level rune gem in his palm and cautiously walked into the tunnel where the Blood Soul Worms had emerged.

Behind the tunnel was a room that had been transformed into a worm nest. The walls were covered with densely packed honeycomb-like holes, with remnants of shed Blood Soul Worms clinging to them.

After checking and confirming that there were no remaining Blood Soul Worms, Su Nan relaxed slightly.

If another swarm of Blood Soul Worms came, he would have to consider retreating for now.

Rose also breathed a sigh of relief. She didn’t want to encounter those terrifying creatures again.

Emerging from the left tunnel, they turned and entered the right tunnel.

The tunnel led to another room transformed into a worm nest, with densely packed holes on the walls containing dormant insects.

At first, Su Nan and Rose instinctively tensed up and assumed a fighting stance, but soon they discovered that they were not Blood Soul Worms. Instead, they were insects that resembled oversized seven-spotted ladybugs, with a layer of crystal covering their dorsal shell.

They lay motionless in their holes, seemingly asleep.

Su Nan approached cautiously, carefully picking up an insect and examining it for a while before shaking his head at Rose.

“Dead.”

The insect was completely devoid of life.

They then checked each one, discovering that most of the insects had perished, with only six still faintly exhibiting signs of life. However, they were like candles flickering in a gale, so weak that they seemed ready to extinguish at any moment.

After some thought, Su Nan decided to place these insects in the iron cage as well.

Leaving the worm nest, they began to search each room one by one.

The first room was a warehouse, containing more than a dozen shelves stacked with various materials.

As they expected, due to the passage of time, most of the materials had deteriorated and were unusable.

Only a small amount of rare metals remained intact.

Next came the meditation room, the indoor planting garden, and the potion room, but there was no luck.

It wasn’t until they entered a room that appeared to be a spell practice room that they made a discovery.

The entire practice room was covered in dust, with the walls, floor, and ceiling pockmarked and cracked, looking as if they had experienced a fierce battle.

A skeletal corpse lay alone against a corner wall.

The corpse was still wearing a robe.

Su Nan immediately recognized it as a magic robe, but after such a long time, it must have become ineffective.

“Is this the owner of the place?”

Rose pointed to several rings on the skeletal hand, the enchanted runes on them blurred.

“Perhaps,” Su Nan glanced at the battle scars in the practice room, “There might have been a second person here.”

After examining the corpse and finding nothing valuable, they left the practice room and came to the last room.

Upon seeing the large workbench in the room, they both brightened up.

It was clearly a laboratory.

As a place for wizards (apprentices) to conduct experiments and research, such places usually held the experimental notes of the wizards (apprentices).

In the absence of a study, the notes in the laboratory might be the most valuable thing in this cave.

After searching, they finally found several notebooks.

The paper of the notebooks was made of special material. Even after so many years, there was no sign of corrosion or weathering.

Opening the first notebook, a large line of text was clearly written on the first page.

《Blood Soul Worm Bloodline Extraction and Fusion》!

Su Nan and Rose exchanged glances, looking at each other in surprise.

They had already experienced the eerie and terrifying nature of the Blood Soul Worms, but they never thought anyone would try to extract and fuse the bloodline of such a monster.

Continuing to read, the name ‘Aivigne Lukas’ was written at the end.

Following this was a series of experimental processes and progress of this wizard apprentice named Aivigne, along with his psychological insights during the process.

According to the description in the notebook, Aivigne had discovered the Blood Soul Worm by chance.

This eerie creature instinctively devoured the flesh and souls of all living beings, using them as sustenance.

As long as it had enough souls, it could even survive forever, never dying.

Aivigne had conducted experiments. The soul of a normal human could sustain a Blood Soul Worm for a month without food or drink.

If it were the soul of a more powerful creature, it could survive even longer.

After discovering this, Aivigne had the idea of fusing the Blood Soul Worm’s ability to devour souls and extend lifespan into his own body, thereby achieving immortality.

He quickly put his idea into action.

After cultivating the Blood Soul Worms for a period of time and obtaining enough samples, Aivigne immediately began his experiments.

According to the dates marked in the notebook, the entire experiment lasted for over twenty years. After hundreds of failures, Aivigne finally successfully fused the Blood Soul Worm’s bloodline, obtaining the ability to devour souls and extend his lifespan.

Seeing this, Su Nan and Rose exchanged glances, their eyes filled with awe.

Immortality!

This was a dream sought after by countless wizard apprentices.

Only with a sufficiently long lifespan could they achieve their dream of becoming wizards.

However, achieving immortality was incredibly difficult.

Most wizard apprentices could only do their best to extend their lifespans.

Yet, Aivigne had truly achieved this, realizing immortality.

In comparison, needing to devour souls was insignificant.

It was like how humans need to eat and vampires need to drink blood; in the face of a long lifespan, it was not a defect at all.

“But if Aivigne has achieved immortality, then who is the corpse in the practice room?” Rose questioned.

Su Nan shook his head. He couldn’t figure out the answer for now.

With lingering questions, they continued to read.

After the experiment’s success, Aivigne was clearly ecstatic, his writing filled with excitement and self-satisfaction.

After that, he cultivated more Blood Soul Worms as research subjects, hoping to further strengthen his bloodline ability and reduce his reliance on soul energy, achieving perfect immortality.

However, this research was unsuccessful.

Not long after fusing the Blood Soul Worm bloodline, Aivigne soon realized something was wrong.

His soul was being polluted!

Through a series of experiments and investigations, Aivigne finally found the cause.

It was that the Blood Soul Worm bloodline actually had a fatal flaw.

Continuously devouring souls would lead to the pollution of one’s own soul, gradually twisting, becoming frenzied, ultimately losing their sanity and falling into utter madness.

This was also why Blood Soul Worms would attack any creatures with flesh and souls.

They had already lost their self-awareness, only left with the instincts of killing and surviving.

And Aivigne was now gradually undergoing this process.

The good news was that he discovered it early. As long as he stopped devouring souls, he wouldn’t be polluted anymore and would continue to maintain his sanity.

The bad news was that due to his soul being polluted, he would be almost impossible to become a wizard in this lifetime.

Realizing this, Aivigne fell into despair.

After that, he frantically searched for an ability to eliminate the Blood Soul Worm bloodline flaw, but he couldn’t find a solution.

This continued for over a decade, and Aivigne gradually felt that he was nearing the end of his lifespan.

He wasn’t willing to die just like that, so he resumed devouring souls, hoping to find a solution to the problem before he lost his sanity.

From then on, the content of the experimental notes gradually took on a twisted and frenzied tone, and the degree of distortion intensified. The last few pages were filled with incomprehensible scribbles, making people feel inexplicably uneasy.

After reading the notes, Su Nan couldn’t help but sigh.

Aivigne’s fate was clear.

In the end, he was still unable to find a solution and ultimately lost himself in madness.

Now it seemed that the traces in the spell practice room were not left by a battle but were likely caused by Aivigne’s own frenzy.

The corpse leaning against the wall was none other than Aivigne.

“It’s a pity. He was just one step away from achieving it,” Rose murmured in a somewhat regretful tone.

Su Nan glanced at her, shook his head and said nothing.

This wasn’t just a matter of one step away.

Aivigne’s failure was almost inevitable.

In the wizarding heyday of a thousand years ago, Blood Soul Worms were not particularly rare creatures.

If fusing the Blood Soul Worm bloodline could achieve immortality, there would have been more powerful wizards who had already studied and achieved it.

But in reality, there had never been any mention of such a method, even in the later wizarding era.

It indicated that no one had ever succeeded from the beginning to the end. The flaw of the Blood Soul Worm bloodline was simply impossible to eradicate.

From the moment he fused the Blood Soul Worm bloodline, Aivigne’s fate had been sealed.

“Don’t sympathize with this guy. He’s not a good person.”

Su Nan said calmly:

“Did you forget about those Blood Soul Worms?”

Rose was stunned, then quickly realized, her face turning ugly.

Aivigne’s death occurred hundreds of years ago. Those Blood Soul Worms were confined to the cave, unable to go out to forage. But they were able to survive to this day, indicating that during Aivigne’s time, they had already devoured a vast amount of souls.

The amount of souls needed to sustain nearly a thousand Blood Soul Worms for hundreds of years without food or drink. How many creatures had to be killed to extract that amount of souls?

Just thinking about it made one’s scalp tingle!

Aivigne’s hands were probably stained with a vast amount of blood in his lifetime!

Putting down the Blood Soul Worm experimental notes, Su Nan looked at the second notebook.

Turning to the first page, it read: ‘Gem Worm Gene Modification and Breeding.’

Gem Worm?

The name sparked Su Nan’s interest.

Flipping through the pages, the notebook content began with Aivigne discovering a type of worm in the underworld that survived by devouring minerals.

They had a unique physiological structure that allowed them to decompose and digest the minerals they swallowed. The waste was excreted, and the essence was accumulated on their backs, slowly forming a hard crystalline armor on their dorsal shell, significantly improving their survival ability.

Aivigne was very interested in this type of worm. To verify a certain idea of his, he captured a large number of them, using a radiation field to induce mutations in the worms. Then, he used magic to modify their internal organ structure, so that the essence of the minerals they digested no longer condensed into crystals but instead transformed into pure gems.

After hundreds of generations of breeding, the Gem Worm was born.

The gems produced by the Gem Worms possessed natural spirituality comparable to natural gems and could completely replace them.

Su Nan and Rose were both surprised and delighted.

The importance of gems to wizards (apprentices) was self-explanatory. Many places required the use of gems.

However, gems were precious and rare. Even Su Nan, who had access to abundant resources, had to use them sparingly.

If there were creatures that could produce gems, the significance would be undeniable!

Besides, the notebook mentioned that when Gem Worms lacked food, they would enter a dormant state. The energy required to sustain life during this period would decrease to an extremely low level, enough to keep them alive for a hundred years.

Su Nan and Rose immediately thought of the motionless insects they had seen earlier.

Their appearance and the crystals on their dorsal shells matched the description of the Gem Worm in the notebook.

“I didn’t expect these little things could produce gems.”

Rose’s eyes lit up with excitement as she looked at the insects in the cage, but then she felt a pang of regret.

The hibernation period of the Gem Worm was too long, exceeding a hundred years, causing hundreds of Gem Worms to be reduced to only six survivors.

Fortunately, according to the notebook, Gem Worms could multiply by splitting.

Even if only one Gem Worm remained, with the passage of time, they could gradually multiply into a large group.

(End of Chapter)

Previous Chapter | TOC | Next Chapter