A few days later, Xiang Yang called his unusual condition "Martial Soul Fusion"—the complete union of a Martial Soul and a Soul Master, with no distinction between them.
The name alone made it clear that he had drawn on Martial Soul Fusion Skills. At their core, those were powerful skills produced when multiple Soul Masters completely fused their Martial Souls, Soul Power, and so on. There were several principles behind them, the most common being complementary Martial Soul attributes. The Hell White Tiger, for example: the White Tiger had light and metal attributes and possessed outstanding strength, while the Hell Spirit Cat represented speed and agility and also had some darkness attribute.
Other examples included the Dragon-Snake Combined Strike and the Golden Sacred Dragon. Beyond that, there were bonds between Soul Masters, or spiritual resonance (feelings). As long as those reached a certain level, they could achieve a Martial Soul Fusion Skill even if their Martial Souls' attributes were not particularly complementary. Demon Charm and Resurrection Light were examples.
There were also exceptions that were harder to judge, such as eyes and butterflies and scorpions and hammers and dragons...
A Martial Soul and its Soul Master were said to be one, but in essence, their relationship was still that of a tool and its user. It was simply more convenient than an ordinary tool, moving, one could say, at the user's will.
But setting aside the third, exceptional case and looking at the first two, the boundary between a Martial Soul and a Soul Master could be broken. Taking the Hell White Tiger as an example again, once the Martial Soul Fusion Skill was successfully used, the two people completely transformed into an energy beast, containing all their Soul Power and Martial Soul skills, and there was no "injury" in the conventional sense. This matched the Martial Soul's own nature as an energy body perfectly.
Moreover, Soul Masters already possessed some of their Martial Souls' own abilities. For example, Soul Masters with the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Pagoda could sense and appraise treasures, those with flower Martial Souls could judge the quality of flowers, and Soul Masters with hammer Martial Souls received a boost when using other hammers. Even without summoning their Martial Souls, they had various passive effects, great and small.
But these were all mental or soul-related effects. None was as extreme as Xiang Yang's, which directly affected his body.
So, using Martial Soul Fusion Skills as a reference, Xiang Yang was just one person with one Martial Soul. He could hardly claim that his Martial Soul and physical body had complementary attributes, could he? That left only a mental cause. Yet the only thing that set him apart from the locals was the way of thinking he retained from his previous life as a transmigrator.
Following that line of reasoning, it was a matter of "mental perception." Moreover, the most important condition for achieving a Martial Soul Fusion Skill was spiritual resonance. If that condition was not met, it was useless no matter how complementary the attributes were. Dai Mubai and Zhu Zhuqing had been in that situation early on.
So Xiang Yang named it [Martial Soul Fusion]—the complete union of a Soul Master and his own Martial Soul. Soul was body, and body was soul.
Judging by the present situation, once [Martial Soul Fusion] was achieved, it allowed the user to fully bring out all the Martial Soul's power and characteristics. In theory, it could also give the user the energy-body characteristics of the Martial Soul itself. It could be understood as elemental transformation after eating a Logia fruit in One Piece.
It could certainly be called an upgraded version of Martial Soul Avatar, turning Martial Soul Avatar from a skill with high explosive power and severe side effects into an ordinary, always-active passive ability.
But Xiang Yang possessed only some of his Martial Soul's characteristics, which showed that he had not yet achieved complete fusion. Or perhaps he needed a higher Soul Power Level? None of this was known yet, so he could only record his discoveries one by one and add to them another day.
After Grandmaster and Tang San learned of Xiang Yang's ideas (he had not mentioned Martial Soul Fusion for the time being), they had only one thought: he had shocked them once again, just as expected.
After Tang San recovered, he immediately thought of his two Martial Souls. Did that mean there was another reason the two Martial Souls could not be cultivated and used at the same time?
Wouldn't that mean that if he could create a cultivation method suited to both Martial Souls, he could use them simultaneously without any hindrance?
He had told Xiang Yang about his Twin Martial Souls when he told him about the cultivation method, so he voiced the idea directly. "In theory, yes, but the problem is that the attributes of your two Martial Souls are too different. It would obviously be much harder. It's best not to spend time on that right now." Xiang Yang did not agree.
He had come up with the idea because he had only one Martial Soul, and the characteristics of Mysterious Heaven Skill were not particularly compatible with it. The benefits a dedicated cultivation method could offer a cultivator went without saying. Most importantly, all he had to do was decide which Soul Rings he needed, something he had to do anyway, so it would not delay him.
Tang San, on the other hand, did not obtain Soul Rings for his two Martial Souls in parallel, to say nothing of their clearly conflicting attributes. The difficulty was easy to imagine. There was really no need for him to create a method as Xiang Yang was doing. If he only wanted to use both Martial Souls at once, he could take his time with it later on.
That afternoon, outside the village where Shrek Academy was located, two girls, each distinctive in her own way, walked together along a country path.
"Zhu Zhuqing, what's so good about this Shrek Academy? It's one thing for my father to send me here, but why did your fiancé send you too?" Ning Rongrong asked curiously. The black-haired girl beside her responded indifferently, "We'll know when we get there." She was curious too. Why had the man she had thought had abandoned her sent someone to find her now, and even said that an academy without the qualifications to enter the competition could help them? Was that possible?
Sigh, but if I really didn't hold out any hope, why would I care enough to come here? It's just...
"Zhu Zhuqing, don't be so cold. You'd look prettier if you smiled more." In the past, Ning Rongrong would not have cared about other people's feelings. Rather, who would have dared defy the Little Demoness? But Zhu Zhuqing had helped her drive away those disgusting thugs. Besides, she was only spoiled and willful, not stupid. Given Zhu Zhuqing's age and Soul Power Level, she was precisely the kind of person a support Soul Master like her should befriend.
"Mm," she said evenly. "We're here."
"Huh? This place is way too shabby."
The gate before them, with a plaque reading "Shrek Academy" hanging above it, was truly an eye-opener. Given the two girls' backgrounds in particular, they had never seen such a destitute academy.
For a moment, both wondered if they had taken a wrong turn. Just then, a blond boy and a red-haired boy came jogging over. On seeing the two girls, they hurriedly stopped.
Thinking of when he had first arrived, Ma Hongjun asked, "Who are you? Are you here to enroll too?"
Dai Mubai stared at the girl standing farther back, dumbstruck. "Are you Zhu Zhuqing?" Although the two had been engaged early on, they had never met from beginning to end. Yet as he looked at her, it was as though a sensation told him that the person before him was his fiancée, Zhu Zhuqing.
Zhu Zhuqing answered coldly, "Mm." Her heart was no calmer, though. She had previously thought he had abandoned her and fled alone. Although she now realized that was not the case, her feelings were still somewhat complicated, and she did not know how to face him.
"You're here, that's great." Excited, Dai Mubai tried to hug her, but Zhu Zhuqing stepped aside. "Is that so? What's so great about it?" He awkwardly withdrew his hands. "Haha, Zhu Zhuqing, I've found a way to turn defeat into victory... or rather... to break free."
He hesitated somewhat over the last part, but hearing this, Zhu Zhuqing had already accepted him. It showed that he was not a coward who had abandoned her and fled alone.
And the news was indeed enough to catch her attention. "What is it?"
Dai Mubai looked at her and said firmly, "A better combination of Soul Rings and Martial Soul Evolution!" If he was not confident himself, how could he persuade anyone else?
Before she could speak, Ning Rongrong, who had been standing to the side enjoying the show, cried out excitedly, "What? Martial Soul Evolution?"
Her Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Pagoda Martial Soul was known as the continent's number one support Martial Soul, but it had a flaw known to everyone: its Soul Master could only cultivate to level 79, the Soul Saint realm, and could break through no further. For hundreds and thousands of years, every Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Pagoda Soul Master had hoped to break this fate, and the most sought-after solution was the theory of Martial Soul Evolution.
Yet over all those years, they had tried every kind of method without ever succeeding. Even she, the sect's most gifted genius in centuries, did not dare claim she could definitely evolve her Martial Soul. But what had she just heard?
She stepped forward and said, "Hey, are you telling the truth? Is there someone here who can help people achieve Martial Soul Evolution?" Her tone carried a trace of disbelief and deep skepticism.
Hearing this, Dai Mubai frowned at her. "You are..." Before he could finish, Ma Hongjun immediately retorted from behind him, "Hmph! Other people can't do it because they don't have my Brother Yang. My Brother Yang helped me..."
He received the same treatment: Dai Mubai cut him off. Dai Mubai first shot him a glare, then said, "There's also Grandmaster. Most of the credit belongs to Grandmaster." As a prince of a nation, he had some understanding of politics. Xiang Yang was not even level 20 yet and had little ability to protect himself. If the truth got out, the consequences would be unthinkable. Grandmaster was different. From what Dai Mubai had learned over the past few days, he not only came from the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan, but also had an unclear relationship with Spirit Hall. Even if his level was not high, he was more than capable of protecting himself.
"Mm, I see." Ning Rongrong did not see his expression after he turned away. With her father Ning Fengzhi's explanation already in mind, she naturally assumed that the main credit belonged to Yu Xiaogang, the theoretical grandmaster of the Soul Master World. This Brother Yang was probably Grandmaster's disciple or assistant or something.
Dai Mubai first looked at Zhu Zhuqing, then turned to Ning Rongrong. "You're here to enroll at the academy too, right?"
"Mm, more or less," she said casually.
Mainly, when Ning Fengzhi had learned the news, he had happened to run into Flender. After a friendly discussion, he learned that Grandmaster had settled down at Flender's academy, so he brought forward a plan he had long been considering.
He wanted to send the Little Demoness out early to broaden her horizons and temper her personality. Only a third-rate academy like Shrek could accomplish that, to say nothing of the chance to befriend a theoretical grandmaster. It was simply killing two birds with one stone.
However, because she was still young, this time he had not let Ning Rongrong set out alone and then sent people to follow and protect her, as in the original story. Instead, he had made time to personally bring people here. After entering the city, they had separated because Ning Rongrong wanted to look around on her own, though he had left some guards to watch over her from the shadows.
At that moment, Ning Fengzhi was inside the academy. "Hahaha, as expected of Grandmaster. I've gained a great deal from this meeting."
"You flatter me. Your many insights have also opened my eyes, Sect Master Ning." Yu Xiaogang was somewhat moved. The sect with the number one support Martial Soul truly had deep foundations.