Chapter 254: Key of the Fusion Gate

He opened the phone interface, and the layout was the same as before.

The most eye‑catching thing was a Little Red Flower in the center, its eight petals forming a circle that opened outward, its core emitting a dazzling golden‑sunlight, with faint mysterious arcane runes flashing.

Surrounding the Little Red Flower was the battery indicator, a circle divided into one hundred cells.

At this moment, every cell was filled green, indicating the battery was full; merging a new magic soul would let the spirit ascend.

Dozens of differently shaped icons radiated outward from the Little Red Flower, like a big roulette wheel.

Each icon represented a phone function or an Element he had merged, and many icons were gray, indicating they were not yet activated.

Lei En's gaze swept across the interface, and he immediately spotted two unfamiliar icons.

"Brand‑new version?"

He couldn't help but rejoice, unable to study what enhancements the previous phone functions had, and instantly focused his attention on the two icons.

The icons trembled instantly and enlarged before his eyes.

After the phone mutated, the icons became very abstract, but the first icon was easy to recognize: a cloud made of dashed lines, with half a small sun peeking from behind it.

It was utterly familiar.

"Weather?"

Lei En was a bit puzzled; didn't weather forecasts require the internet? He had assumed that after crossing into Ai Lun E Si, all software that needed the internet had become obsolete.

He tapped the weather icon, and instantly a phantom interface unfolded.

The interface background showed night and starlight, indicating it was night, and several lines of text appeared:

Oriense Empire, Mo Du, clear, 15 °C.

Lei En scrolled through it several times, fully convinced this was a weather app; it looked much like the weather information from his previous life, showing not only the current conditions but also a twenty‑four‑hour forecast with hourly rain probability, temperature, humidity, wind speed, visibility, and so on.

The biggest difference was that, besides weather, a few extra pieces of information were added.

Regional Element distribution: Fire 21, Water 7, Wind 5, Earth 8, Thunder 4, Mystery 35, Shadow 3, Others 17, totaling exactly 100.

Lei En was a bit confused about the principle.

Ai Lun E Si had no internet and no weather satellites; how did the phone obtain this information? Moreover, the displayed text had been converted into Aurelien Language.

"What good is a weather forecast?"

He scratched his head; since the phone mutated, its built‑in functions had also changed, each serving a different purpose—some very useful, others rather superfluous.

The Soul Eye was undoubtedly the strongest, and the Voice of All Things was also quite good.

The least useful was the Monster Compendium; Lei En had only used it a few times and hadn't identified many things with it, mainly because he rarely ventured out, spending most of his time in the city, so it was unnecessary.

According to previous conventions, weather surely had other uses as well.

Lei En fumbled for a while and soon found it.

When he focused his mind on the symbol representing "Clear", instantly several options unfolded before him: "Rain", "Wind", "Fog", "Snow", "Thunder", "Overcast", and so on.

Moreover, each option had a progress bar beneath it that could be dragged.

Lei En tried switching "Clear" to "Rain".

The full battery was instantly drained, dropping rapidly by over ten units; soul power vanished directly from his mind into the void, and the nearby air changed slightly.

Wah—...

Lei En heard a drizzle, rose to stand by his bedroom window, and saw water droplets falling from the night sky outside, growing larger until a heavy rain poured down.

"It's raining!"

Lei En's face was stunned; looking again at the weather interface, he saw the Element distribution change: "Water" rose from 7 to 12, while the other distributions fell.

Especially, Fire was compressed to 10, yet still higher than the other Elements.

This was clearly linked to Fu Kong Cheng; his teacher was a fire Elementalist, naturally raising fire density through Fu Kong Cheng's massive formation. Mystery energy peaked at 35, likely due to the Iola Core's effect.

"Whoa!"

He couldn't help but exclaim, this wasn't a weather forecast at all—it was a weather controller! He had thought it useless earlier, now he realized he was completely wrong!

Altering the weather within the realm of Tongtian changed the density of various Element energies, as if cheating.

On a small scale, energy density affects spell potency, giving the caster an advantage in battle; on a larger scale, weather can decide the outcome of a war!

Lei En kept exploring and found that changing the weather consumed an enormous amount of battery.

The larger the weather‑control area, the more intense the change and the longer it lasted, the battery consumption multiplied. By his estimate, his current hundred units of battery could only produce a ten‑minute downpour over five square kilometers.

Even so, this weather forecast was incredibly powerful.

Lei En closed the weather app, turned his gaze to the second icon, and became a little dazed.

This icon was also familiar: a sphere split in half, one side red, the other white, with a smaller inner circle at its center containing a beast's skull.

The skull was abstract, a collage of various beasts' features, indistinguishable yet exuding a clumsy charm.

"Pet‑taming Master?"

Lei En was thrilled; this was the mobile game he used to play, once a global sensation, allowing players to capture virtual pets in real‑world locations, raise them, and battle friends.

Before his crossing, the game had already gone out of fashion, but he still liked it, installing it on his new phone immediately, never expecting it to come to Ai Lun E Si.

Lei En eagerly opened the icon.

A brand‑new interface appeared before him; its style differed greatly from before, yet the usage was understandable and easy to pick up.

At the center floated a red‑white sphere, bobbing up and down in midair.

His mind locked onto the sphere, which emitted a faint white glow.

A phantom aura formed on Lei En's hand; as his soul power waned, the aura solidified into a tangible red‑white sphere, its surface etched with flowing complex runes, yet it felt weightless.

"Should I throw it out?"

Lei En muttered to himself, but there was no other living being in the room besides him, so he couldn't conduct a test.

Reluctantly, he tossed it onto the floor.

The sphere exploded upon impact, bursting into a flash of dazzling white light before vanishing.

There was no change on the interface; clearly, this capture failed to obtain a pet and instead consumed one unit of power.

"I can only try again after returning to the castle."

Lei En rubbed his hands excitedly, because he remembered that this pet‑taming game could capture many creatures; the species of Ai Lun E Si were countless, far more than on his previous life's Diqiu by an incalculable factor. If he could domesticate a batch and reach a certain scale, it would be equivalent to a powerful legion!

However, since the limits of the pet‑taming Master are still unknown, he couldn't be too jubilant yet.

Lei En paced back and forth in his bedroom for dozens of rounds before calming down.

He sat back on the bed to examine his phone.

Aside from two new icons, the previous functions had slight changes, perhaps enhancements.

Soul Eye's super vision now lets him see farther; Voice of All Things likewise can hear finer, more distant sound waves and discern sources more clearly; battle music's power‑boosting effect remains unchanged, but it now includes a KTV mode…

"So it finally lets me sing too?"

When Lei En discovered this new mode, he was both exasperated and amused.

Before the crossing, he had spent an entire night at KTV as a karaoke tyrant, drinking heavily, and fell asleep half‑drunk, half‑awake, only to arrive dazedly at Ai Lun E Si.

"I guess this counts as not forgetting my original intention…" Lei En muttered self‑deprecatingly, but his mindset had shifted; humming a few lines alone was fine, yet singing in front of others still made him a bit embarrassed to speak.

I, the illustrious Earl of Glamorgan, chairman of Weizelan Fu Kong Cheng, how dare I sing!

Lei En sat upright, and after finding no other functions, began meditating, gradually restoring the power he had spent manipulating the weather.

An hour later.

Lei En opened his eyes; the power was back to full, and his soul had returned to peak condition.

He retrieved the Purple Source Soul Crystal from his ring; it was bestowed by Longhaired Lady and can permanently store demon souls. Earlier, as a precaution, he had already transferred the demon soul of the luminous jellyfish into the crystal—a swirling brilliance impossible to stare at that roamed within the soul stone, its light seeming to contain the secrets of space and time.

Staring at the beautiful oval gem, Lei En's thoughts drifted to the day Viola held a prayer ceremony, the taste of the deity—truly unforgettable for a lifetime!

"Tsk tsk…"

He couldn't help but feel his heart flutter; it had been over two months since he last saw Viola, and he felt a bit resentful.

With that thought, Lei En became restless and his qi surged; after some effort he managed to calm himself and sit steady again.

He took a deep breath and pressed the soul stone to his forehead.

The next second, the luminous jellyfish's demon soul plunged into his mind, and the Soul World Tree trembled instantly. An indescribable brilliance appeared at the tree's roots; as soon as it manifested, Lei En felt his head throb, countless indescribable pieces of knowledge flooding his brain as if about to burst.

"Ugh!"

Lei En let out a muffled hum; his consciousness was jolted and blood spurted from his nostrils.

Fortunately, he didn't faint; his Willpower of Truth repelled the mental shock, only causing a bit of bleeding, and his consciousness remained crystal clear.

He breathed rapidly a few times, suppressing the mind's vibration, and Lei En began to fuse the demon soul as before.

He disregarded everything, instantly igniting the Fusion Soul Seed forged from golden oak fruit, causing the entire soul to vibrate once, the World Tree burst with golden light, suppressing the anomaly.

Bang!

An inaudible shockwave rippled through his mind, and the luminous jellyfish's manifested brilliance shrank a notch.

Lei En activated his meditation technique, using soul power to push it upward from the tree roots. Though this special and terrifying demon soul fought desperately, it was not strong itself and was forced to climb the World Tree.

One step, two steps, one step, two steps…

It only climbed a short distance before the luminous jellyfish's demon soul spread again, turning into countless indescribable glows like bubbles drifting outward from the roots.

Simultaneously, a terrifying hidden message erupted in his mind.

Lei En found it extremely tricky and could only trigger another soul vibration, suppressing the demon soul; the glow extinguished, then was forced upward again.

Expansion, suppression, ascent.

This cycle repeated.

Each soul power vibration also harmed Lei En, but fortunately after the third Soul Transformation his soul became many times stronger, raising the number of tolerable vibrations from about ten to thirty.

In the process, he discovered the luminous jellyfish's demon soul was unique.

Other demon souls, once suppressed, become weak; if suppressed too often, the Elements within may be lost, even causing fusion failure.

Yet the luminous jellyfish is indomitable; after suppression it quickly recovers.

It seems able to draw energy from the void, never weakening no matter how many vibrations it endures, let alone dissipating.

The Elements within its demon soul are also extremely stable, showing no signs of loss.

This reassured Lei En, removing all hesitation; he repeatedly ignited soul power vibrations, forcing the luminous jellyfish to merge with the World Tree.

Of course, this would wound his own soul.

After fifteen soul power vibrations, Lei En felt his consciousness hazy and his head throbbed, so he activated battle music to ease the pain, then swiftly retrieved a soul‑returning elixir from his ring and gulped it, causing his soul power to surge.

The World Tree kept shaking, golden light blooming in wave after wave.

The luminous jellyfish quickly climbed past the height of three branches on the first tier, then laboriously reached the second tier, where it clashed violently with three Mid-stage demon souls, especially two bearing the "Lightning Affinity" Element—Swift Shadow Thunderblade Leopard and Electric Mouse—causing the branches to twitch wildly, nearly out of control.

It was then Lei En understood why so few Wizards possess two affinities; different affinities naturally repel each other, and the stronger the affinity, the harder the fusion.

This is fucking hard!

After several perfect Soul Transformations, his Willpower was unwavering, and with the golden soul seed harmonizing suppression plus the luminous jellyfish's non‑dissipating trait, he almost couldn't maintain it.

For anyone else, successful fusion would be nearly impossible.

Lei En, despite his injuries, frantically ignited soul power vibrations, barely suppressing the conflict and allowing the luminous jellyfish to keep climbing, away from those two demon souls.

Once the distance widened, it became much easier.

After a few more vibrations, finally the luminous jellyfish's demon soul reached the appropriate height and halted at the World Tree's canopy, where an inexplicable brilliance erupted, enveloping the entire soul space.

The glow seemed to be composed of countless stacked bubbles, forming a bizarre portal!

In the light there was a door, and the door had a hole.

The door clung to the World Tree's trunk, the two merging perfectly; immediately, a tentacle‑like branch emerged from the door's aperture, extending outward, twitching continuously like a living thing.

The slick tentacle branched into four smaller tendrils.

Precisely, they were four filaments, each ending in a leaf‑shaped piece of flesh bearing faint runes, and the large tentacle's tip also bore a rune‑flesh, making a total of five!

Lei En instantly recognized the five rune elements: Key of Doors, Any Door, Flash, Vector Shield, and Light Blast Technique!

"Success!"

(End of chapter)