Chapter 260: Rune Imprint
After successfully taking control of the Secret Realm Tower within the secret realm, Zhou Ming and the Scorpion-Lion temporarily parted ways.
The two had left the mining site to explore the secret realm. If no news had been sent back for a prolonged period, Bone Fang and Wild Lion would certainly grow worried.
Moreover, the rebellion triggered by Dulag had thrown the mining site into a temporary shutdown. The follow-up matters still required the Scorpion-Lion to personally step forward and handle them.
Thus, after finishing the division of spoils, Zhou Ming and the Scorpion-Lion immediately returned to the mining site to stabilize morale and deal with subsequent affairs.
As for Zhou Ming, because of the knowledge left behind by the Tower’s Master (Male), he temporarily chose to remain in the Secret Realm Tower to study the immovable altar.
According to the knowledge Zhou Ming had obtained, the research project of the Tower’s Master (Male) was called the Spirit-Flesh Fusion Ritual.
Through the ritual, one would fuse one’s spiritual will into the flesh, thereby transforming into the best possible carrier of runes, and mastering the imprinting of runes within one’s bones, internal organs, and blood through the manipulation of Energy Particles, advancing to the Legendary realm in an entirely new form.
Although the Tower’s Master (Male) ultimately failed to achieve Advancement to Legend, the overall direction of his research had not been fundamentally flawed.
The reason Zhou Ming chose to remain was precisely to study the altar required to cooperate with the ritual.
Zhou Ming already had a rough vision of his own path. The problem he now needed to solve was how to integrate his will into his bloodline, and even into his snake swarm.
The Snake Swarm Will was essentially the power of the many supporting the one below. But what Zhou Ming wanted was for the one above to dominate the many below.
His will would become the will of the snake swarm. His will would fuse into the bloodline of the snakes, thereby making him the emperor of the new snake race he would create.
Originally, this difficult problem had long troubled Zhou Ming’s mind. But the Tower’s Master’s (Male) plan for Advancement to Legend had pointed out an entirely new path for him.
Through the ritual, he would fuse his will into his bloodline, even into the snake swarm, thus completing the final piece of his advancement puzzle.
On the Ninth Floor of the Tower, yellow sand piled up all around. Zhou Ming held the Inheritance Crystal in his hand, continuously cross-referencing various runes to confirm the effect of each one.
He needed to thoroughly comprehend the knowledge contained within the altar, so as to construct a ritual altar suitable for his own needs.
Due to limited conditions and the lack of suitable experimental subjects, Zhou Ming even used the Ironthread Snakes he had contracted as test subjects.
As long as the number of snakes in the swarm did not fall below ninety percent, his own strength would not be affected.
Therefore, he had at least one hundred Ironthread Snakes at his disposal.
And these one hundred Ironthread Snakes were the weakest among all the Ironthread Snakes in terms of strength.
When he saw that the dawn of advancement lay right before his eyes, Zhou Ming quietly became somewhat frenzied.
However, for all Professional Beast Tamers, when they glimpsed the possibility of advancing to a Transcendent Beast Tamer, perhaps anyone would fall into such a state.
Powerful strength and a long lifespan—these were temptations no one could easily resist.
“Thirty-seventh Bloodline Will Fusion Ritual Experiment.”
On the Ninth Floor of the Tower, Zhou Ming held a file, recording the experimental data.
The thirty-seventh experiment meant that thirty-six Ironthread Snakes that had reached the low-tier Ferocious Beast level had already died.
The cold temperament once hidden deep within Zhou Ming resurfaced once more.
His ink-black long hair, smooth like satin, was tied behind him, revealing a face that exuded a faint chill—an evil nobility intertwined with indifference toward life.
No matter how Zhou Ming changed, he could not completely eradicate this temperament. Perhaps this was his true inner nature.
Yet his rationality still remained. He understood that if he completely lost his humanity, he would become a puppet of power.
That was not what he sought.
That was why he accepted Lei Yuan’s affection, why he was willing to joke and banter with the Scorpion-Lion—so that on the path of pursuing strength, he would not lose himself.
“The ritual begins.”
As Zhou Ming chanted the obscure incantation and formed hand seals, the Source Crystals placed around the ritual altar began to emit dazzling golden light.
In the division of spoils with the Scorpion-Lion, Zhou Ming had obtained all the knowledge left behind by the Hydra Rune School and the Tower’s Master’s (Male) research, as well as a small portion of precious Transcendent resources.
The Scorpion-Lion, on the other hand, had taken ownership of the secret realm before him, along with most of the other precious Transcendent resources.
Having acquired the knowledge of the Rune Mage from the Spellcaster System of Tamu World, Zhou Ming had also mastered certain spellcasting techniques.
Of course, being able to fluently chant such obscure incantations was also thanks to his prior mastery of the language of Tamu World.
As the ritual activated, a thread of Zhou Ming’s consciousness descended upon the altar. With the altar’s power, he intended to completely integrate his consciousness into the Ironthread Snake coiled atop it.
Under the influence of the ritual, the Ironthread Snake suddenly became violently berserk. Yet suppressed by the altar’s power, its body could only writhe continuously upon the platform.
Moments passed. The consciousness Zhou Ming released remained unable to merge with the Ironthread Snake’s bloodline. The two were like water and oil—utterly incompatible.
“Still not working?”
As the Ironthread Snake lost its life, a trace of impatience surfaced on Zhou Ming’s cold face.
He had not demanded immediate success from the ritual. He only needed to see even a slight trend of fusion—proof that his idea was not fundamentally flawed.
After all, the altar before him had not been specifically designed for the fusion of bloodline and will. Failure was normal. But the complete absence of any sign of fusion meant that his conceptual framework itself might be flawed.
He had already stayed in the secret realm for nearly over twenty days. If he still could not determine whether his hypothesis was correct, then after leaving Tamu World, he would have to search for materials to reconstruct a new altar before continuing his experiments.
That would waste an enormous amount of time and effort. Even gathering the resources required to construct the altar might prove difficult in the short term.
Faced with the lack of progress in his experimental evolution, Zhou Ming temporarily set aside further experimentation. Instead, he calmed the impatience in his heart and turned his attention to the research left behind by the Tower’s Master (Male).
Now that it had been confirmed that his current experimental plan was unworkable, continuing would only be futile. Changing his line of thought was the wiser choice.
Returning to the Tenth Floor of the Tower, Zhou Ming devoted all his energy to studying the Tower’s Master’s (Male) research and his philosophy for Advancement to Legend.
“Rune imprinting… rune imprinting…”
As he flipped through the various research materials, they all recorded methods of imprinting runes—using the power of runes to transform oneself.
On the third day, a sudden spark of inspiration flashed through Zhou Ming’s mind.
“Rune imprinting. If I transform my will into a rune, could I imprint it into the bloodline of the Ironthread Snake, thereby making my will become the Bloodline Will of the Ironthread Snake?”
The moment this thought emerged in Zhou Ming’s mind, it spread like wild grass, occupying all his thoughts.
He now possessed the inheritance of the Hydra Rune School. The knowledge required to convert one’s will into a rune was all within his grasp.
As for how to imprint runes, the Hydra Rune School had conducted in-depth research on the matter. It could even be integrated with the altar left behind by the Tower’s Master (Male).
Once he successfully fused his will into the snake swarm, combined with the genetic structural transformation research of the Catgirl, the bloodline fusion of the Fusion Worm, and the erosive research into dragon-type genes—
The issues of bloodline transformation and Bloodline Will would be completely resolved.
The new snake race would take his will as its core.
For a moment, Zhou Ming even recalled the Marching Ants he had hunted in the Cloud Mist Basin. The Army Ant Queen (Female) had possessed absolute control over her colony and could even draw upon the power of the swarm.
When a complete blueprint of advancement formed within Zhou Ming’s mind, a trace of joy finally surfaced upon his cold face.