Getting a Little Worked Up

"Kid, what are you hiding from me? Show me your Soul Ring!"

Only then did Zhou You relax his control over his Martial Soul and let it release its Soul Power fluctuations. A yellow Soul Ring quietly emerged, hovering around the surface of the Heaven- and Earth-Harmonizing Umbrella.

After sensing it, She Long could confirm that the fluctuations from the kid's Soul Ring were indeed somewhat unusual.

He finally believed that Zhou You had really absorbed the Ironclad King Worm's Soul Ring.

"A seven-hundred-year Soul Ring. Seven hundred years..." She Long muttered to himself.

Then he looked at Zhou You with a complicated expression. This kid truly had exceptional talent. There probably wasn't a First Soul Ring of a greater age anywhere on the continent.

Could his talent even surpass Qian Renxue's?

Qian Renxue's Innate Level 20 Soul Power was a secret within Spirit Hall. Apart from a tiny handful of people, the vast majority of those who knew about her believed she had innate level 10 Soul Power.

She Long was not among that tiny handful, so as he saw it, the two were evenly matched in terms of Soul Power aptitude alone.

But the quality of the Six-Winged Angel Martial Soul far surpassed that of ordinary top-tier Martial Souls. Zhou You's Heaven- and Earth-Harmonizing Umbrella was somewhat inferior.

Even so, not even Qian Renxue's First Soul Ring was over seven hundred years old.

She Long looked at the Heaven- and Earth-Harmonizing Umbrella. Zhou You had been able to hunt a Hundred-Year Soul Beast on his own, and one of the hardest kinds to kill at that. Perhaps his Martial Soul was a top-tier Tool Martial Soul on the same level as the Clear Sky Hammer. Otherwise, it simply made no sense.

Seeing She Long sink into deep thought as though faced with a difficult problem, Zhou You withdrew the Heaven- and Earth-Harmonizing Umbrella back into his body.

Now that he knew the man before him was a Titled Douluo and had a friendly attitude, Zhou You immediately seized the opening and took the opportunity to voice the many questions he had accumulated over the past few days.

He didn't know who his future mentor would be, but an opportunity like this was hard to come by, and he would never let it slip.

She Long did not refuse and answered each question in turn.

At first, the questions were fairly straightforward, and She Long answered them with relative ease. But as they grew more probing, his expression began to turn serious.

"You're asking whether a Soul Master can directly control the Soul Power in their body? Of course. Soul Masters can use Mental Power to direct Soul Power."

"Why can't low-level Soul Masters do it? Because their Mental Power isn't strong enough, and they don't have enough of it."

"You're asking what Mental Power is in essence? Well..." She Long stumbled over his words. He really couldn't put it into words directly.

He relied entirely on experience. After thinking for a moment, he continued:

"Mental Power is a kind of invisible psychic force activated by the human brain. As a Soul Master's level rises, this power naturally increases as well... What? You're asking whether Soul Power and Mental Power can be directly converted into each other? Of course not!"

"You're asking why a Soul Master's Mental Power can grow? Didn't I just say that as Soul Power increases, Mental Power naturally... Wait, let me think this through."

Without a doubt, when a Soul Master's level rose, it was mainly their Soul Power that increased, while Mental Power had long been something that improved passively.

Only now did She Long realize that he actually understood too little about how Mental Power worked.

Why did Mental Power rise along with a Soul Master's level?

She Long was a Titled Douluo who had climbed to a considerable height along the Soul Master's path of cultivation. Of course he wouldn't brush Zhou You off by saying it was "only natural."

So he thought for a moment and answered cautiously, "Every time a Soul Master advances, their Soul Power undergoes a qualitative change. During this process, the Soul Master's physique also improves, and that includes the brain."

"At the same time, when absorbing a Soul Ring, a Soul Master must face the impact of the Soul Beast's lingering thoughts from the moment before its death. That process itself also tempers the mind."

Zhou You immediately asked, "Could I understand it this way, then? The essence of Mental Power is related to the brain's structure, and when a Soul Master breaks through to a new realm, the qualitative change in Soul Power causes an organic mutation in the brain, which in turn increases Mental Power?"

"Well..." She Long was momentarily at a loss for words. He couldn't answer the question, but it sounded somewhat reasonable.

Zhou You continued, "You just said that resisting the impact of a Soul Beast's lingering thoughts can temper a Soul Master's mind."

"Then could I also assume that if a Soul Master consciously undertook similar mental training in everyday life, it would help raise the upper limit of their Mental Power?"

"If Soul Masters could also strengthen their physical and mental training during daily cultivation, would they be able to withstand older Soul Rings when they hunted for them?"

"After all, both physique and Mental Power are indispensable for resisting the impact of Soul Power and the assault of the beast's lingering thoughts. The Soul Master's own reserves of Soul Power, on the other hand, aren't much help."

Zhou You knew this from experience. When enduring the impact of a Soul Ring's Soul Power, what mattered more was being able to contain it, rather than using one's own Soul Power to fight it. That was pure waste.

It was like two martial arts experts pitting their Internal Force against each other: win or lose, both would come away injured.

The reason Zhou You could easily contain the Soul Ring's Soul Power was that he consciously directed it through his meridian system, taking the Soul Power into his Meridians rather than bearing it directly with his flesh.

The meridian system was not an anatomical structure actually visible in the human body. In a sorcerer's terms, it was a set of fixed energy channels within the body's Qi formation. It was attached to the flesh, yet existed in another dimension.

In terms of Daoist inner alchemy, it was a set of "vessels" that arose naturally from Innate Qi and existed alongside the flesh. Because it was formed by Innate Qi, the system was essentially without form or substance, impossible to see or touch.

It wasn't exclusive to Otherworldly Beings. Ordinary people had it too; they simply weren't aware of it and couldn't use it.

It was just like a muscle: even if you didn't train it, it still performed its function, but if you trained it diligently, it would become tougher.

The meridian system was a highway for energy. The Twelve Primary Meridians ran throughout the body, taking the straightest routes and covering the greatest distance. Soul Power consumed quite a lot of its energy just by completing a circuit through them.

The vast majority of that Soul Power was refined anew into Qi in the process. As the quality of the energy improved, its quantity decreased accordingly. Once the Qi dispersed into the limbs and bones, it would no longer cause any adverse reaction.

Then there were the Eight Extraordinary Meridians. If the Twelve Primary Meridians were the body's highways, primarily serving to distribute the flow and offering little storage capacity,

the Eight Extraordinary Meridians were reservoirs and grand canals, with a vastly greater capacity for storing energy. That was without even mentioning the Three Dantians, which were greater storehouses still.

After all, once Zhou You absorbed the Soul Ring, his Dantian's bottleneck had automatically broken and its capacity had expanded. As for the danger of his body bursting, he hadn't felt the slightest sign of it...

When She Long told him that the Soul Ring he had absorbed was over seven hundred years old, he too found it unbelievable. He distinctly remembered the original work saying that normal Soul Masters could only absorb Soul Rings a little over four hundred years old. Any older and they would be finished.

But as far as his own experience went, seven hundred years... was only so-so. How could that be dangerous?

The older and younger man continued their questions and answers in the carriage.

Soul Masters cultivated only their Martial Souls, not their Dantians, so She Long knew nothing about the meridian system. Thus, he couldn't understand how Zhou You had absorbed a Soul Ring beyond his own limit so easily.

Zhou You, meanwhile, did not follow the traditional Soul Master cultivation system, and he likewise couldn't put himself in their shoes: how could Soul Masters be stuffed to death by the Soul Power of a Soul Ring only a few hundred years old?

On this point, their discussion felt a little like a chicken talking to a duck.

She Long was a man of temperament, and as they talked, he got worked up.

"Kid, are you trying to overturn the experience Soul Masters have accumulated over countless years?"

Zhou You closed his mouth and gazed at She Long.

At that moment, he had only one thought: If you cultivate without using your brain, how are you any different from a brute?