Yan's Training Path (Part 2)

This meant Yan could do more things with greater creativity.

By separately training his control over fire- and earth-element energy, he could then blend them into enhanced magma energy with higher temperatures, greater hardness, explosive properties, and other variations. On that basis, he could alter the effects of his soul skills through Soul Power that underwent Nature Transformation, bringing different tactical options.

By compressing the shape of flames and constraining them into concentrated bursts, he could achieve faster explosive speed. Or he could freely alter the shape and area of magma to achieve effects similar to automatic defense.

You Chen called these two directions of training "Nature Transformation" and "Shape Transformation."

By combining the two and cultivating them to a profound level, one could even freely create Self-Created Soul Skills!

It could be said that the Flame Lord possessed unparalleled natural advantages when it came to Self-Created Soul Skills!

According to the information You Chen had obtained from the original work, as well as records concerning those Super Douluos in Spirit Hall, once one reached the level of a Super Douluo, one's understanding and control of the martial soul's source power became the standard that distinguished true powerhouses—and the prerequisite for advancing even further.

By having Yan delve deeply into this area, You Chen was effectively opening up the road ahead in advance. If Yan built a solid foundation now, then if he truly advanced to become a Titled Douluo in the future, his path would be smooth sailing compared to other soul masters.

But the future could wait. You Chen felt that knowing too much too far in advance could easily make his disciple aim too high.

For now, he had Yan focus on this only to make up for Yan's weakness in speed as much as possible.

To compensate for his shortcomings in speed through control over fire-and-earth elemental powers, the first thing that came to You Chen's mind was "a Gundam's jetpack."

However, since this was a fantasy world, the name jetpack would be somewhat meaningless. You Chen named it—the Flame Thruster.

Through high-precision Fire Rock Control, a controllable booster would be formed behind his back.

With this Flame Thruster, Yan could obtain the ability to fly at a relatively low soul master rank, an ability ordinarily possessed only by Titled Douluos and a very small number of flight-type soul masters.

Of course, flying and hovering while continuously spewing flames consumed enormous amounts of Soul Power, so it could only be used as a trump card.

The Flame Thruster's most versatile use was still sudden acceleration, deceleration, and instantaneous changes in direction during battle.

This speed, which completely defied normal human intuition, was even more troublesome than sustained high speed.

Once Yan's strength improved further and he possessed sufficient Soul Power, he could become a supersonic flying cannon platform.

"Mobile Flying Cannon"—that was the final form You Chen had planned for Yan.

For the sake of this goal, the second and third soul skills You Chen chose for Yan were, in the eyes of outsiders, the kind of choices that completely misled a disciple.

Even if one acquired the soul ring of the most suitable soul beast, not everyone could rely on their own will to fully construct a soul skill according to their own ideas.

The process by which a soul master influenced the formation of a soul skill through their own will was also called a "Self-Created Soul Ring" or a "Self-Created Soul Skill."

The most important requirement for a Self-Created Soul Ring was that one's spiritual power had to far surpass that of ordinary people.

Without exceptional spiritual power, one would not even have the spare focus to think of anything else while absorbing a soul ring, much less maintain clear thoughts. Naturally, influencing the formation of a soul skill with one's own will would be out of the question.

The higher the age of a soul ring, the harder it was to maintain clear thinking while absorbing it.

After ten thousand years, there could even be mental shocks left behind by the soul beast, raising the difficulty to another level.

This showed just how rare the adaptive soul rings You Chen had obtained from the system were. Not only was their energy pure and their age self-adaptive, they also carried no additional mental shock. Otherwise, he might not have been able to perfectly construct Sacrifice Sanctuary.

To allow Yan to create a Self-Created Soul Skill with his second ring, You Chen specifically required Yan to remain at the level-twenty bottleneck for a while longer, using that time to refine his spiritual secret art, the Distraction Control Soul Refining Art, and increase his spiritual power.

Although one could still improve spiritual power through the Meditation Method while at a Soul Power bottleneck, the efficiency naturally could not compare to cultivating at a higher rank.

Whether it was Bibi Dong's arrangement or simply the shared opinion of the surrounding teachers and students, there was no shortage of rumors during that period that "You Chen was misleading his disciple."

After You Chen wasted Yan's precious cultivation time, and the soul skill produced by the soul ring he chose was clearly utterly incompatible with Yan's "assault-type" path, You Chen's reputation could be said to have plummeted to rock bottom in a short time. The entirety of Spirit Hall Academy rang with mockery calling him an "incompetent teacher."

This also laid the groundwork for You Chen being marginalized within Spirit Hall Academy.

That "useless soul skill" was called Lava Barrier.

Though it was a thousand-year soul skill, its effect was extremely simple: it used Soul Power to instantly construct a massive wall capable of blocking damage, causing it to rise from the ground. That was all.

In Douluo Continent, a world where every soul master had to classify themselves into a specific category, this was simply absurd.

If it were a defense-type soul master, acquiring such a soul skill would naturally be fine.

But for an assault-type soul master, if a soul skill did not strengthen attacks or serve as a powerful offensive move, then it was a trash soul skill.

When Yan heard everyone denouncing his benefactor and teacher, he dearly wanted to "tell them the truth"—to tell everyone about the path You Chen had planned for his future.

But You Chen naturally stopped him.

This was not only because You Chen did not want his training methods to be leaked, but also because he deeply understood that even if he explained, the vast majority of people would not understand. They would continue criticizing him regardless.

The stigma of You Chen "misleading his disciple" was only somewhat cleared after Yan advanced to Soul Elder and swept through every opponent during his training in the Soul Arena.

Whether it was the second soul skill or the third, You Chen's idea was very simple: strengthen Yan's ability to use Soul Power to construct tangible things.

Starting from nothing and carrying out training in Nature Transformation or Shape Transformation was exceedingly difficult.

One had to know that Soul Power was not as versatile or as easy to control as chakra.

Even for someone like the Flame Lord, who was innately gifted with enhanced control, this remained true.

Spirit Hall's library did indeed contain some cultivation manuals along similar lines, but none could produce results without several years of effort. This was also one reason why Self-Created Soul Skills were so rare in this world.

Compared to independently learning from scratch, imitating soul skills that had already taken shape within soul rings was clearly a better choice.

Once Yan had completely turned Lava Barrier into something of his own, able to use it even without activating his soul ring, he would naturally have smoothly entered the path of Shape Transformation training.

In any case, once his rank rose, the Flame Lord's natural compatibility with Self-Created Soul Skills would allow him to easily create soul skills at the hundred-year and thousand-year levels in the future.

So there was nothing serious about directly giving up the abilities of the first few soul skills.

The third soul skill was still related to Shape Transformation. It was called Yan Prison Cage. Its effect was to form a cage resembling the prison of a magma demon god, sealing away the enemy. It was an extremely powerful control and confinement skill. The complexity of the cage it formed was significantly greater than the shield of the second soul skill.

With his second and third soul skills serving as the best teachers for his training, Yan had finally set out smoothly on the path of Self-Created Soul Skills.

After Yan's training in Self-Created Soul Skills had achieved some initial success, he once asked You Chen to bestow a name upon his Self-Created Soul Skills, as a way of repaying his teacher's guidance.

You Chen naturally had no objection and bestowed the name upon the series—Yan's Creation Magic!