"It actually works!"
Feeling the will coming from the Mist, the corners of DanMachi Lynn's mouth gradually curled up.
With DXD Lynn's example before him, he naturally knew how powerful the Mist's power was.
Without hesitation, he gave a direct reply.
In the next second, a large amount of Mist surged forward, seeping into Lynn's body and merging with the Red Magic Stone.
At the same time, a ball of light emitting a rainbow glow floated out of his body.
"This is..."
Facing the unexpected situation, DanMachi Lynn's face showed a look of confusion.
Vaguely, he could feel that as this ball of light left his body, he seemed to have lost something.
But before he could further think about what this situation represented, he saw the ball of light explode violently and merge with the surrounding Mist, turning into runes.
Centered on DanMachi Lynn's position, these runes fell from all directions, covering his physical body and even his soul, leaving no blind spots.
"Holy shit! What is this!"
Demon Slayer Lynn, who had just entered the Mist Plaza after receiving the news, saw this scene and froze on the spot.
"Brother, I think I'm taking off."
DanMachi Lynn also snapped out of it.
During the strengthening process just now, he had realized what that ball of light was.
It was the Spirit Devouring Barrier, or rather, the concept symbolizing the magic 'Spirit Devouring Barrier'.
Perhaps because the quality of the Red Magic Stone was too poor, or perhaps because DanMachi Lynn's Monsterization Surgery was flawed.
While the Mist was strengthening DanMachi Lynn's Magic Stone, it took the opportunity to extract the concept of the Spirit Devouring Barrier and used it as a raw material to complete his Monster Physique.
And the change this triggered was turning the Spirit Devouring Barrier from a magic that needed to be actively released into a special constitution similar to a talent.
No longer needing to summon a Barrier, now DanMachi Lynn only needed to mobilize magic power to activate his physical body, and he could automatically absorb surrounding souls.
Similarly, as long as he wounded an enemy in battle, he could weaken their ability scores and temporarily add that part of the ability scores to himself.
And after merging with the Monster Physique, the Spirit Devouring Barrier... or rather, the now passive Soul Devouring Constitution, had gained a new effect of devouring magic power.
By taking Lynn's attack, an enemy would not only have their ability scores weakened but even their magic power would be sucked away.
"Holy shit! You've really taken off!"
Demon Slayer Lynn exclaimed after hearing this.
Then, he seemed to remember something and hurriedly stepped forward to touch DanMachi Lynn.
"Wuhu! Sharing successful, now I've taken off too! Hahahahaha!"
"Why are you laughing so happily?"
"As soon as I come in, my ears are pierced by demonic sounds. Can't you make some normal noises?"
"+1."
Just then, the other Lynns arrived at the Mist Plaza one after another.
Seeing Demon Slayer Lynn laughing like a husky, they knew something good had happened just by thinking with their butts, and each touched him once to complete the sharing.
"Holy shit! This is awesome!"
Having understood what happened, One-Punch Lynn finally knew why the other was laughing so happily.
"I didn't expect the second one to receive strengthening would be the DanMachi version of me. It's truly unexpected."
Jujutsu Lynn came to his senses, a look of contemplation flashing in his eyes.
Rather than testing the new ability, he was more concerned at this moment with the reason DanMachi Lynn received the strengthening.
"Could the standard for obtaining Mist strengthening be a foreign object linked to one's own soul?"
"I think it's not that simple."
DanMachi Lynn's reply came.
After a brief moment of calm, he had settled his emotions and joined the analysis.
"A foreign object connected to the soul should only be one of the standards, but it's not absolute."
"Don't forget, you were the first one to bring a foreign object to the Mist Space back then."
When the Mist Space first awakened, DanMachi Lynn had always treated it as a communication platform.
It wasn't until Jujutsu Lynn consumed Sukuna's Finger and summoned the other party's soul to the Mist Space that they had the idea of developing the Mist.
"The reason should lie in hostility."
One-Punch Lynn expressed his view.
"Although we don't know what the Mist Plaza is, the fact that the Mist here is influenced by our subjective will seems to be no problem so far."
"Back then, when Sukuna was summoned to the Mist Space, he held extremely strong hostility toward you, and you didn't treat him as one of your own either."
"The Mist Plaza might have felt this intent, so it didn't trigger the strengthening mechanism."
"That is indeed a possibility." DanMachi Lynn nodded slightly, agreeing with One-Punch Lynn's view.
However, this was only one possibility, and the available data for reference was still too little.
Up to now, only DXD Lynn and DanMachi Lynn had received Mist strengthening.
With limited samples, the Lynns could only summarize the commonalities, then grope and try little by little, attempting to further develop the Mist.
"Let's start exploring from the aspect of [foreign objects connected to the soul]. Can any of you try it?" DanMachi Lynn asked, looking at the others.
In the past, just searching for soul-related items would have been a hassle.
But it was different now.
With the Soul Immortal Arts provided by DXD Lynn, this threshold had lowered significantly.
As long as there was a suitable item, establishing a connection to meet the conditions was not a problem.
"I'll give it a try."
Demon Slayer Lynn was the first to sign up.
Just like DXD Lynn's Boosted Gear, an external object like a Magic Stone ultimately couldn't be copied over.
By touching DanMachi Lynn, what he obtained was the Soul Devouring Constitution.
Being able to devour souls to become stronger, and being able to weaken the enemy's magic power and ability scores in battle.
As for the ability to become stronger by devouring Magic Stones, which relied on the Magic Stone inside the body, it was still unique to DanMachi Lynn.
Coveting the uniqueness of the two, Demon Slayer Lynn also wanted to get an item to strengthen himself and manifest his own difference.
And coincidentally, he really did have such an item.
Referencing Kokushibo's method, he forged a weapon using his own spine and flesh.
The weapon materials all came from himself, so it was inherently a perfect fit, and he quickly established a soul connection using immortal arts.
However, to Demon Slayer Lynn's disappointment, when he returned to the Mist Plaza again, it did not trigger the strengthening mechanism.
"It failed."
One-Punch Lynn thought: "It seems that besides the connection with the soul, there should be other conditions."
"Could it be a defect?"
The newly arrived DXD Lynn gave a new direction.
"Although Ddraig has no ill will toward me, the Boosted Gear is actually a very dangerous Sacred Gear."
"In the deepest part of the Sacred Gear, the souls of previous Red Dragon Emperor hosts remain, wrapped in various negative emotions."
"If I activate Juggernaut Drive, I will be affected by those negative emotions, and there is a certain probability of losing my mind."
"However, after strengthening the Sacred Gear with the Mist, Ddraig told me that the negative emotions inside the Sacred Gear are gone. Now, as long as my physical fitness is sufficient, I can freely activate Juggernaut Drive."
In fact, this was also his current greatest trump card, his main reliance for contacting the Satans through Rias.
Once he activated Juggernaut Drive, he would have the power to fight even against Transcendents like Ajuka and Sirzechs.
Correspondingly, the power of Juggernaut Drive would place a burden on his body, so it could currently only be used at critical moments.
On the other side, after hearing DXD Lynn's view, the other Lynns all showed expressions of agreement.
"It indeed might be related to defects."
DanMachi Lynn raised his hand and touched his chest.
Under normal circumstances, the Magic Stone would become a fatal weakness of the Monster Physique; once destroyed, it would cause the soul to snap.
Although he had optimized this weakness using immortal arts, the Magic Stone was still the core of the Monster Physique.
However, after receiving the strengthening, the internal structure of the core Magic Stone had changed, and its strength had significantly increased, enough to rival Orichalcum, the hardest metal in the DanMachi World.
In addition, the core Magic Stone had two other changes.
One was that it gained self-repair capability; as long as it wasn't destroyed in one hit, it would slowly repair itself.
The other was that the utilization rate of Magic Stones had significantly increased, and the same amount of Magic Stones could refine more magic power.
Using the Deep Layer Magic Stone he ate before as an example.
If a Magic Stone contained 100 units of magic power, after he ate it and refined it using the core Magic Stone, it would eventually produce 10 units of high-quality magic power.
These 10 units of high-quality magic power would be divided into two parts: one part would merge with the core Magic Stone to strengthen its quality, and the other part would merge into Lynn's body to strengthen his ability scores.
However, after receiving the strengthening, the magic power utilization rate of the core Magic Stone significantly increased; 100 units of ordinary magic power could refine 30 units of high-quality magic power, making the effects of strengthening the core Magic Stone or body far exceed before.
In addition, the Soul Devouring Constitution produced by merging the Spirit Devouring Barrier could be said to be the ultimate upgraded version of the Monster Physique, capable of absorbing and digesting a large amount of high-quality magic power in an instant.
Combining the changes in the Boosted Gear, the Mist Space likely sensed that these items had defects, so it triggered the strengthening mechanism to help resolve them.
Thinking of this, DanMachi Lynn again looked at the others.
"Do you have any items around you that have defects, can establish a soul connection, and be merged into yourselves?"
"No."
"I only have some Legendary Kitchenware."
"Only a Tennis Racket."
"I practice boxing every day and haven't collected anything like that."
A series of replies sounded, and the Lynns all spread their hands with helpless expressions.
Items that had defects and could be connected and taken into the body were not found everywhere.
"Then pay attention to collecting them."
Without suitable items, the testing could only end there.
After chatting in the Mist Plaza for a while, Demon Slayer Lynn was the first to take his leave.
He planned to imitate DanMachi Lynn, craft a Magic Stone and stuff it into his body to see if he could get strengthened.
Inspired by him, Jujutsu Lynn also had a similar idea; after all, he really had nothing else to do.
"Next, I'll learn the Divine Script and the Blessing Ritual to see if there's a chance to improve them."
DanMachi Lynn, who had already decided to transition to a support role, also stated his plan before leaving.
The research into the Monster physique had come to an end for now.
Next, besides researching potions and forging, what attracted him most was the Blessing System.
Quantifying abilities and drawing out internal potential through combat—this system held great potential.
If he could fully comprehend the Blessing System, optimize and improve it, and spread it to other worlds...
Then the Lynns in other worlds could use this power to create their own factions; at the very least, trading it with others would be a guaranteed profitable business.
Of course, the Blessing System was something created by gods after all. Learning it wouldn't be simple, and the difficulty of optimizing and improving it went without saying.
Considering the possibility of failure, DanMachi Lynn mainly focused on learning the Divine Script first.
Divine Script is the language of the gods in DanMachi, and the characters themselves possess power.
If he could master the Divine Script, he could refer to Hephaestus's methods and use it to forge weapons.
"It seems I need to step up my game as well."
After hearing DanMachi Lynn's plan, DXD Lynn also felt motivated and left the Mist Plaza.
...
Time passed, and in the blink of an eye, several days had gone by.
After returning from the Mist Space, DXD Lynn began his life of skipping classes.
During the day, he dragged Kuroka along to learn high-level Senjutsu.
In the afternoon after school, he would clock in at the Occult Research Club and, in turn, teach Koneko Senjutsu.
At night, he would visit the Mist Space to share his results with the other Lynns.
Due to the time difference, over half a month had already passed for Demon Slayer Lynn.
Perhaps due to limited materials, he hadn't been able to craft Magic Stones to complete the Monsterization surgery.
On the other hand, Jujutsu Lynn had found a Cursed Tool with negative effects. By using Senjutsu to establish a soul link and bringing it to the Mist Plaza, he obtained an enhancement.
However, unlike the qualitative changes experienced by DXD Lynn and DanMachi Lynn, Jujutsu Lynn's Cursed Tool only had its negative effects optimized by the Mist; other aspects didn't change much.
This result caused the Lynns to calm down, realizing that the Mist Space might have a potential evaluation mechanism for different items.
For items that were too trashy, the Mist Space would only simply optimize the negative effects, rather than providing a comprehensive enhancement like it did for the Boosted Gear, or even granting a powerful new ability.
During this process, DanMachi Lynn proposed a new possibility.
The compatibility between the Mist and devouring abilities.
The core Magic Stone DanMachi Lynn initially used for his surgery was just a stone fused with his blood, its quality inferior to the Cursed Tool Jujutsu Lynn had found.
Yet it ultimately gained the Mist's favor. DanMachi Lynn believed this was related to the Monster physique, which possessed the trait of 'Devouring' Magic Stones.
The third magic DanMachi Lynn awakened was the Spirit Devouring Barrier, which could 'devour' souls.
The new ability awakened by DXD Lynn's Boosted Gear was also related to 'Devouring.'
From various experiences, it could be seen that the Mist possessed an extremely high 'Devouring' attribute, which even influenced Lynn to a certain extent.
Reasoning backwards, if they could find items with the 'Devouring' attribute, they might lower the threshold to obtain high-quality enhancements from the Mist.
This discovery motivated Jujutsu Lynn once again to seriously search for Cursed Tools that possessed the 'Devouring' attribute while also having certain flaws.
The other Lynns did the same, paying attention to whether there were similar items around them.
In the DXD World, Friday arrived.
When Lynn arrived at the Occult Research Club as usual, Rias took out a letter and handed it to him.
"What's this? A love letters"
"Unfortunately, you guessed wrong."
Rias replied, "This is an invitation Lord Beelzebub asked me to deliver. He wants to meet you."
...