Chapter 123: The Return of the Missing Person

Kurumi smiled and handed a bottle of milk to Muyang, who slumped back into the hot spring the moment he received it.

"What do you plan to do in the future?" Curious about Muyang’s mysterious background, Kurumi couldn't help but ask.

"The future? I don't know, and I don't want to know. The future is the most terrifying thing. Even if you are fully prepared, the next second still holds countless variables. No matter how ingenious a plan may be, it can still fail. I choose to drift with the tide until I find a goal." Muyang sighed.

"And if you do find a goal, what will you do?" Kurumi asked.

"Then I will tailor a plan for that goal and patch every loophole in it. If there is a flaw that cannot be fixed, I will either hide it well or prepare a contingency for every possible point of failure," Muyang replied.

"You are certainly cautious. Thank you for the hot spring. Until next time, little Spirit boy." Kurumi offered a faint smile before sinking into her own shadow.

"Finally gone. Though I suppose I should be off too; the AST might show up here at any moment." Muyang stood up from the hot spring, wrapped a towel around himself, and felt the wind bite at his skin. He muttered to himself, "Don't girls feel uncomfortable when they wear skirts, given the empty feeling underneath? I really don't understand what they're thinking." (A question from the author; those who know, feel free to answer.)

After returning to the house he had acquired through trade, Muyang pulled out a book: *Notes of an Eighth-Rank Soul Engineer*.

He had exchanged for it back in the Douluo world, but had never found the time to read it. Now, with no active system missions and plenty of idle time, he decided to give it a look. It was a thick volume, filled with incredibly detailed entries. The author had meticulously recorded everything: the exact amount of soul power to inject, the precise curvature of every line, the number of segments, and even detailed descriptions of the finished products. Most astonishing, however, was an entry regarding an unfinished soul device. While it resembled a suit of armor, it was bristling with weapons and power-storage bottles; unfortunately, only a prototype existed.

This notebook was worth far more than the 1.5 million gold soul coins he had paid. Usually, such a sum would barely secure the fundamentals of a first-to-eighth-rank soul engineer, and even those would be incomplete.

It was clear that the author hadn't just been keeping a record; he had realized his own talent was insufficient to complete this masterpiece and hoped a successor would finish it—a testament to his profound devotion to soul engineering.

Since the notebook was now in his hands, Muyang resolved to complete the device, regardless of the challenge.

For the next month, Muyang did not leave the house. He even constructed a basement underneath, utilizing various items exchanged through the system to facilitate the work.

After trading knowledge and materials with the system, Muyang finally succeeded in crafting the soul device. The cost, however, was steep: aside from his own innate soul power, every single orb of soul power stored within his body had been traded away.

Yet, it was all worth it. Although the final result deviated slightly from the original design—transforming from a suit of armor into a weapon, a humanoid weapon—it now incorporated basic spatial overlapping technology. While elementary, this knowledge far exceeded the scope of any ninth-rank soul engineer. As for its armaments, it possessed thousands of unique, non-repeating weapon configurations. Its power source was the heart of a Yang Phoenix. After Muyang had slain the beast, its heart continued to absorb surrounding soul energy at a rapid rate. Muyang suspected this was linked to the creature’s regenerative abilities, though he had repurposed that essence for his own ends.