Chapter Ninety: The Elevation of the Soul (Third Update)

After confirming that the number of clone slots granted by Soul-for-Matter Transmigration could be swapped at will, Jiang Chen’s first move was to use all three of them at once.

Three Black-Skinned Tribe slaves willingly offered their lives to Jiang Chen in exchange for the freedom of their kin and people.

Splitting his soul into four parts in a single stroke was agony beyond words. Even with the rapid recovery granted by Soul-for-Matter Transmigration, Jiang Chen endured immense suffering.

Under the nourishment of a great many treasures, it still took more than a month for both his true body and the four clones to gradually grow complete souls.

The remaining funds were enough to forge five Spatial Furnaces.

With the true body uninvolved, the three clones would need a little over a month to finish the construction enchantment on all the components.

Naturally, the entire forging process would take longer. Even if Jiang Chen could mobilize more engineering machinery to help, it would still take nearly two months before all five Spatial Furnaces were fully installed.

But so long as he waited patiently for a time, then together with the original Spatial Furnace, six Spatial Furnaces operating at once would yield close to 3.5 mixed-origin units a month. The return was nothing short of astonishing.

If the profits earned were reinvested into forging even more Spatial Furnaces, the future gains would be even more shocking.

As for whether so many high-grade energy blocks could actually be sold, Jiang Chen did not worry in the least.

Although the technology of the Devouring Starry Sky world was advanced, it had by no means broken free of dependence on energy.

Even items like universe crystals, which contained vast amounts of energy, had become the most mainstream currency in that world.

No matter how many energy blocks Jiang Chen produced, the human race would absolutely be able to absorb them all.

However, once the first batch of Spatial Furnaces had been installed, there was no need to keep all his clones occupied with their manufacture.

At least in the beginning, one clone was more than enough.

As for the true body, it would naturally spend most of its time in the system library, absorbing knowledge and improving its level.

After some thought, Jiang Chen decided that one of the remaining clones would be sent into the cosmos to venture through various perilous lands and temper itself in battle.

Whenever it had free time, it could also enter the virtual universe’s Slaughter Space to hone its combat skills and make up as much as possible for this weakness.

Before he had clones, Jiang Chen had no interest in spending large amounts of time on combat.

Compared with becoming an invincible genius at the same level, Jiang Chen preferred to crush his enemies with overwhelming strength.

But now that he had clones, he could do more things at once, and naturally began to consider compensating for this deficiency.

There were still several years before the Universe Genius Battle.

Jiang Chen had already crossed the threshold of law comprehension in the elements of wind, water, and darkness. Before the genius battle arrived, he was confident he could cross the threshold of law comprehension in all six elemental laws covered by the system’s third-tier library.

At that level, compared with the cosmos’s most dazzling geniuses, such as Beran, Luo Feng, and Rong Jun, he would still fall short. But so long as his performance in actual combat was not too disastrous, breaking into the top thousand overall in the universe would be effortless.

He might even have a shot at the Heaven and Earth Secret Realm, or even the Primal Secret Realm.

As for the Original Secret Realm...

Unless the genius battle allowed Jiang Chen to enter wearing a mech, or even to bring along an entire mechanical legion, he held no hopes whatsoever.

Still, as the core of his own power, Jiang Chen would not abandon research into technology.

Especially after personally experiencing the might of the Soul-for-Matter Transmigration specialty, Jiang Chen became even more ambitious and hungry for other powerful specialties.

Unfortunately, specialty points were very hard to obtain.

Apart from the fixed amount awarded whenever the system leveled up, the only other way was to rely on his own accumulated knowledge, research new blueprints, perfect them to the point of system approval, and have them recorded by the system. Only then, according to the blueprint’s level, could he obtain a certain number of specialty points.

And achieving that state of “being recognized by the system” was no easy matter.

When he first forged the Goliath Giant mech, Jiang Chen not only combined natural technology with alchemy, but also repeatedly adjusted and revised it through countless updates before the design was finally approved and recorded by the system.

Since then, Jiang Chen had not produced a second blueprint recognized by the system.

Of course, this also had to do with Jiang Chen no longer facing outside pressure and no longer focusing intently on designing any single thing.

For Jiang Chen now, as his efficiency in mastering new knowledge continued to rise, whether it was machinery, alchemy, or magical constructs, even if he painstakingly devised a highly refined plan, once that knowledge was updated, the old design would quickly be obsolete. There was no need to expend too much effort on it.

Even if a need arose, he would merely find a similar design among the system blueprints and modify it somewhat.

Such a degree of “innovation” was clearly not enough to meet the system’s requirements.

But now, with clones, Jiang Chen could let them handle this task entirely.

One clone would focus on tempering combat techniques, while two clones would focus on designing all kinds of technological creations and refining them until they were approved by the system.

As for manufacturing Spatial Furnaces, it would always take time to save up the funds for one anyway; when the time came, he could simply pull one clone away from blueprint research.

Time passed day by day.

Back when Jiang Chen first obtained the system, the hardest part was rising from nothing to “formal martial artist.”

It took nearly three years before he finally reached the War God level.

Yet as his attributes increased, and with the blessings of Heightened Focus and Scholar’s Thought, his later leveling speed actually grew faster.

From planet level to star level, it took only a little over two years.

However, after entering star level, Jiang Chen’s leveling progress slowed once again.

It was not because his specialties were ineffective, nor because he had become poor at learning new knowledge.

Rather, each upgrade now required far more “experience.”

From entering the second tier to reaching second tier, level three, it took a full year and a half.

And the farther he progressed, the longer each experience bar became, and the slower his leveling speed would continue to fall.

Jiang Chen even suspected that before the genius battle ended, he might not be able to cross into the third tier and enter the universe level.

Of course, there were ways to accelerate his progress.

By exchanging for specialties like Heightened Focus and Scholar’s Thought, which improved the efficiency of mastering new knowledge, Jiang Chen could spend less time absorbing the system library’s knowledge and raising his level.

But all specialties shared a common trait.

The cheaper they were to exchange for, the weaker their effect.

The more powerful the effect, the higher the price.

Obtaining a strong specialty that could significantly accelerate leveling would require a substantial number of specialty points.

And with specialty points being relatively limited, whether to prioritize leveling speed or to enhance other abilities was a question that required careful consideration.

For example, Jiang Chen was extremely tempted by the Mechanical Prodigy specialty, which cost 666 specialty points.

Combined with the “legion-style” path of the mechanical system, this specialty would greatly enhance both the quantity and quality of troop production.

After much hesitation, however, Jiang Chen decided to postpone obtaining it.

On one hand, all his funds were being poured into forging Spatial Furnaces. He simply did not have spare money to build a powerful mechanical legion.

On the other hand, he had no immediate need for one.

At his current stage, the cheaper universe-level slaves were more than sufficient.

With the technology Jiang Chen currently possessed, he could not even create mechanical units with combat power beyond universe level nine.

If an enemy could not be dealt with by a universe level nine slave, then Jiang Chen could do nothing against them either.

To forge a mechanical legion, it would at least have to be a force capable of reaching domain lord-tier combat strength before it could truly help Jiang Chen at present.

Since he was not forging such a legion, the value of Mechanical Prodigy was not so high.

It would be better to first exchange for some learning-type specialties, or other functional specialties, to improve his growth speed.

——

Half a year after obtaining his clones.

Through the division of labor between two clones, Jiang Chen developed the second blueprint to be recognized by the system: Titan Warrior.

This was a “work” combining technology, alchemy, and arcane arts.

Through alchemical technology, living beings were altered, their self-awareness erased, and mechanical equipment implanted to enhance their combat power.

Finally, through magical constructs, the strength of the alchemical lifeforms was greatly increased.

These units, existing somewhere between life and machinery, had the appearance of giant trolls, yet could be controlled by Jarvis and turned into part of his mechanical legion.

Though ugly in appearance, they possessed combat power at the level of universe rank five and were completely immune to illusions and soul attacks.

Naturally, their cost was not low. The average expense came to around one billion universe coins apiece, far more expensive than simply buying a universe rank five slave.

Directly purchasing a universe rank five slave would cost only three to four hundred million universe coins, less than half that price.

Moreover, slaves still had room to grow, whereas Titan Warrior had no further room for advancement, unless its weapons were replaced or it underwent deeper genetic modification and the like.

However, Jiang Chen had not originally designed Titan Warrior in order to mass-produce such “weapons.” He had done it solely for the system reward.

After continuous refinement, the Titan Warrior blueprint was recorded by the system and rated at third tier, fifth level. Jiang Chen received a reward of 999 specialty points.

This number led Jiang Chen to suspect that, at the third tier, each level up probably awarded 999 specialty points.

He did not keep these specialty points. Instead, he exchanged them for a specialty called Mind Sublimation.

Mind Sublimation: intelligence, spirit, and mystery attributes increased by 30 percent; mental resistance increased by 40 percent; mental resistance tier +1.

Exchange cost: 850 specialty points.

A 30 percent increase to intelligence, spirit, and mystery, combined with Heightened Focus and Scholar’s Thought, allowed Jiang Chen to learn and master new knowledge much more quickly.

But even more important was the mental resistance and mental resistance tier.

The latter two were hidden attributes on the system panel, and Jiang Chen was not even entirely clear on what they represented.

Still, from the literal meaning alone, they were tied to the defenses of soul and consciousness, and could greatly improve his ability to survive.

The clone’s survival benefit was tremendous, but not omnipotent.

If a clone in the cosmos were slain by an enemy through soul destruction, both the true body and the clone would die together.

Jiang Chen did not know whether his Soul-for-Matter Transmigration had such a weakness, but there was certainly no harm in strengthening his soul-related survival capacity.

This world was full of danger, and no amount of life-saving ability was ever too much.

The successful recording of Titan Warrior by the system also gave Jiang Chen a “shortcut.”

A design based on a single system was extremely difficult to get accepted.

That was because the system contained the top technological achievements from countless worlds, and no single system of thought could easily surpass the blueprints already recorded within it.

But by combining different systems, the difficulty dropped far lower.

Especially the more systems involved, the fewer corresponding blueprints existed in the system, and the greater the chance of achieving “innovation.”

In truth, as a design, Titan Warrior was not perfect in Jiang Chen’s eyes; there was still plenty of room for improvement.

But the combination of alchemical lifeforms, mechanical implantation, and magical constructs had opened up a new “path.”

It was this kind of innovation that was the main reason Titan Warrior was recorded by the system and given such a high evaluation.

Having confirmed this, Jiang Chen immediately understood how he should proceed from here.

Practicality and cost-effectiveness no longer needed to be his primary concern.

What mattered most was continuously combining natural technology, alchemical technology, and arcane technology with one another, researching more “innovative” blueprints, and obtaining large amounts of specialty points.

Of course, doing so burned money at an alarming rate.

Many designs could not be completed by paper calculations alone; in the end, real objects still had to be forged, tested again and again, and refined.

The process of perfecting Titan Warrior alone had cost nearly ten billion universe coins.

But compared with the specialty points gained, that amount of money was trivial.

A small portion of the profits from Spatial Furnaces was enough to support Jiang Chen’s research expenses.

——

On Earth, Jiang Chen’s true body and his two clones spent nearly all their time in the library and the laboratory.

Beyond Earth, one of Jiang Chen’s clones constantly traveled to dangerous places, venturing forth and tempering its combat skills.

This was not the legion-based style centered on a mechanical army and protected by layers upon layers of troops that Jiang Chen had once imagined.

Instead, it took the most traditional path of a spiritual master controller, fighting solely with a single psychokinetic weapon, the Heaven-Spanning Shuttle.

Then, half a year later, after another new blueprint was recorded by the system and Jiang Chen exchanged for a new specialty, he suddenly had a new idea.