Translator: 549690339
Lin Zhen used to release Soul Lock only when his opponent was in a state of spiritual confusion or under specific circumstances, so there were few instances where he used it directly.
However, since his spiritual power advanced to the late stage of Dark Gold, his spiritual power could be described as vast as the ocean. At this moment, his momentum reached its peak, and he managed to break through Hansen’s mental defense in an instant.
Hansen stared blankly, twitching as he stood there. Lin Zhen walked slowly to his side, grabbed him by the collar, and looked straight into the depths of his soul.
“Tell me everything you know…”
“My name is Hansen. I come from Madrid Base City. I received an order from an
Ice City person on the internet. His name is Wei Li and belongs to Gale Martial Arts Hall. He offered 30 billion to take your life, and capturing you alive would add another 30 billion.”
Assassins were supposed to keep their clients’ secrets, but under Lin Zhen’s Soul Lock, everything was exposed.
“Are you part of an assassin organization?”
“Yes, we are called Nightingale. Our highest leader is a Star Realm expert named John, but he never shows up. There are two leaders in the organization now, one is the mysterious Mistress and the other is the arrogant and powerful Ai Er. I belong to the Mistress’s team.”
“Did you come here alone?”
“There are two of us, and another one is Alice. But she went back. After I go out, I will call her, and she will come to pick me up.”
Lin Zhen asked for a while and got a general understanding of the situation.
According to Hansen’s words, Nightingale seemed to be a powerful assassin organization with internal strife. He and Alice were a small team and belonged to a leader called Mistress.
Seeing the task posted by Gale online, he and Alice accepted it and came to Ice City, only to fall into Lin Zhen’s hands.
After asking many questions about European martial artists, Lin Zhen originally wanted to kill Hansen. But after considering that those under Soul Lock would never betray him, Lin Zhen changed his mind.
Hansen was a seventh-level War God with compressed Dantian qi in eight layers and a Dark Gold stage spiritual mind master. It would be better for Lin Zhen to have him help collect A-level Mutant Poisonous Insect crystals.
The Five Connected Pools were in the golden period for collecting the Poison Insect Crystals. With only Lin Zhen here, once the technology department revealed the secret of the crystals, this place would be overcrowded.
At that time, the mutated poisonous insects here would be in short supply. Countless War Gods and even long-term residents would not be enough to restrain their desire to advance. The number of poisonous insects here would decrease, and the War Gods’ advancement would no longer be as rapid as Lin Zhen’s.
Leaving Hansen to collect crystals nearby, Lin Zhen continued to move forward to the second volcanic lake of the Five Connected Pools, Yan Mountain Lake.
The special meteorite in the first volcanic lake was a spiritual power meteorite, which was exclusively used by spiritual mind masters. However, the meteorite in the second volcanic lake, Yan Mountain Lake, had a great use for Lin Zhen as well.
The meteorite contained a dazzling crystal stone like a diamond.
This crystal stone was called Permanent Crystal, akin to the status of diamonds on Earth, and was the strongest crystal stone on the broken planet.
The Permanent Crystal could be used to forge weapons, but it could not be melted by flames. Only lightning ions can soften it. Once softened, it can fuse with liquid metal, greatly enhancing the strength of the liquid metal.
However, not everyone can master the power of lightning ions. This kind of
Permanent Crystal is mostly used as an expensive decoration in the universe.
If Lin Zhen’s liquid metal could absorb the Permanent Crystal, the resulting weapon would reach the level of a High Grade Celestial Device. But Lin Zhen didn’t know any way to continue enhancing the liquid metal beyond that.
Having a High Grade Celestial Device that could transform at any time was extremely valuable for Lin Zhen at this stage, and its worth even exceeded that of a general Top Quality Celestial Device.
Moreover, this Permanent Crystal was the only one known on Earth, making it priceless. Even if the price was hundreds of billions or even trillions, people would likely buy it at all costs.
Thus, Lin Zhen had to obtain this Permanent Crystal.
However, when Lin Zhen arrived at Yan Mountain Lake, he encountered trouble.
There were no S-level mutated poisonous insects in Yan Mountain Lake, but the waters were full of extremely tenacious crabs.
A-level Alien Beasts: Rampage Crabs!
These Rampage Crabs were the size of small cars, and their giant pincers were incredibly sharp. When Lin Zhen first entered Yan Mountain Lake, he was nearly cut in half by a crab and couldn’t even get close to the water’s edge.
Moreover, these crabs were not only in the lake but also ran onto the shore at high speeds to attack. They could even shoot out dozens of meters in an instant. The sheer number of crabs was alarming. If Lin Zhen couldn’t teleport or fly, he might not have had the chance to escape at all.
Lin Zhen then made multiple attempts with Hansen, but they could only kill a few scattered crabs and still couldn’t enter Yan Mountain Lake.
There were still two months before the War God’s Knockout Tournament.
Unable to find another solution, Lin Zhen came up with a clumsy method.
He let Hansen be responsible for attracting the crabs, and then he would dive into the water in an area with fewer crabs to search for the location of the Permanent Crystal.
Whenever a crab came to attack Lin Zhen, he could use his teleportation ability, which had reached a range of 100 meters, to escape instantly.
Although the area of Yan Mountain Lake was not small, Lin Zhen could still explore one to two percent of it every day. Lin Zhen believed that he would eventually find the Permanent Crystal by slowly grinding down like this.
Every time after luring the crabs, Hansen would entangle a few of them. When Lin Zhen teleported over, the two would together kill the crabs and obtain their A-level crystals.
With these A-level crystals as a foundation, Lin Zhen’s cultivation speed was still skyrocketing. He even gave some to Hansen, allowing his progress to
slowly advance as well.
There were simply too many crabs here. Even with Lin Zhen and Hansen absorbing them, the number of crabs in Yan Mountain Lake didn’t seem to decrease. Lin Zhen even started storing A-level crystals, with about seven or eight left over each day, which he stored in his space ring.
Days went by, and after a month and a half, a quarter of Yan Mountain Lake had been explored. Lin Zhen’s realm had also advanced from the early stage of level four to the middle stage.
After two months, half of Yan Mountain Lake was explored. Lin Zhen had reached the late stage of level four, and surprisingly, Hansen had reached the peak of level seven and was about to break through.
Hansen told Lin Zhen that Alice should be coming to pick him up by now. However, Lin Zhen didn’t let Hansen leave because without Hansen, no one would help him lead away the crabs. They couldn’t do without him at this point, so they would let Alice wait if she was willing.
After two and a half months, Lin Zhen finally broke through again, successfully advancing to a fifth-level War God. His combat power increased again. Three-quarters of Yan Mountain Lake had been explored, but unfortunately, the Permanent Crystal hadn’t yet been found.
Lin Zhen was somewhat helpless about this. His luck was good, but sometimes it was bad. Why was the Permanent Crystal hidden in the last quarter of the lake?
As the War God’s Knockout started in five days, Hansen advanced to a level eight War God. Lin Zhen also made great progress in the early stage of the fifth-level War God and would likely advance to the middle stage in about ten to eight days.
At that time, he finally found the Permanent Crystal.
He and Hansen had a camp and followed a strategy of searching from far to near. Surprisingly, the Permanent Crystal was in the waters closest to their camp.
After finding the Permanent Crystal, Lin Zhen was both amused and annoyed by his luck, as the saying goes, “Seeking far while ignoring what’s near.”
If he had found the Permanent Crystal earlier, he would probably already be exploring the third volcanic lake. Instead, he wasted time here.
However, it was also a gain – he had acquired the Permanent Crystal and had some time to calmly cultivate and consolidate his realm. Being at the peak of the early stage as a fifth-level War God was already very impressive.
Looking at the Permanent Crystal in Lin Zhen’s hand, Hansen’s eyes began to shine.
“Wow! This stone is so beautiful. I guarantee it’s the most beautiful stone in the world, no… the universe.”
When Lin Zhen held the Permanent Crystal in his hand and shook it against the sky, it still emitted colorful light in his hand even without sunlight, so beautiful that it seemed unreal.
Hansen also held it: “Lin Zhen, this colorful transparent stone is so heavy, weighing at least a hundred kilograms.” “Yes, this kind of stone has a very high density.”
“What do you plan to do with it?”
“Refining it into a weapon.”
Hansen hesitated: “Really? Can a stone weapon be strong?”
Lin Zhen smiled: “Put on your Star Device Armor.”
Hansen’s body flickered, and the Middle Grade Star Artifact armor appeared.
Lin Zhen took a sharp corner of the Permanent Crystal and scratched the armor, leaving a dent!
“Oh my God! This stone is incredibly hard. But Lin Zhen, if it’s so hard, how are you going to melt it? Will using fire vaporize it? We can’t waste it.”
“I have my ways; you don’t need to worry about it. Get ready, we’ll leave the Five Connected Pools in a day.”
“I’ll follow your arrangements Lin… It’s strange, why do I like listening to you so much? It must be your charismatic personality.” Hansen muttered and walked away.
A person with a Soul Lock is no different from a normal person, but he will never know that he has been soul-locked. He will not take any actions that would be detrimental to Lin Zhen, nor will he reveal any of his secrets.
Hansen went to collect more crab crystals, while Lin Zhen took out Liquid Metal.
Lightning Ions from his body began to swarm out, injecting into the Permanent Crystal.
Bursts of dazzling colorful light flickered, and the Permanent Crystal, like encountering its natural nemesis, slowly softened.
The Liquid Metal around Lin Zhen’s waist immediately covered it, mixing and gradually merging with the Permanent Crystal.
An hour later, Lin Zhen stood up.
With a flick of his hand, a 150-kilogram colorful metal strip flew up into the air, circled around, and once again condensed into a belt around Lin Zhen’s waist.
However, this belt was too flashy, so Lin Zhen covered it with an animal skin sheath.
Nobody would ever know that Lin Zhen had such an extraordinary divine weapon around his waist..
