Cultivation Arts and Martial Techniques

People of Douluo Continent were not enthusiastic about developing Self-Created Soul Skills for a reason.

Even the Mysterious Heaven Treasure Record, the cheat the original author had given the protagonist that could be used with seamless compatibility, was no exception.

Take Ghost Shadow Perplexing Track as an example. Even when cultivated to perfection, it was at most equivalent to a ten-thousand-year soul skill.

For an ordinary person to cultivate it to perfection, who knew how much time and effort it would take?

But for soul masters? One soul ring solved it directly.

The greatest use of these Self-Created Soul Skills was not for soul masters of the same system, but to help soul masters of other systems make up for their shortcomings.

For instance, if power attack or auxiliary system soul masters learned an agile footwork technique, they could expand their offensive options and improve their survivability.

But the problem was that the soul masters best suited to and most skilled at developing this type of soul skill were agility attack system soul masters.

And did agility attack system soul masters have any need to develop such soul skills themselves? No, they did not.

Wouldn't it be better to spend that time training their Soul Power?

Over time, this had created an atmosphere where research into Self-Created Soul Skills was extremely rare.

Even when someone did create a soul skill, it generally lacked universal applicability. They were mostly the kind that could only be used with inherited family martial souls and could not be widely promoted.

The cultivation arts and martial techniques You Chen had obtained were all universally applicable and had no requirements for martial souls or additional talents.

With the system's infusion of knowledge, he had also crossed the initial threshold and directly reached the beginner stage, saving himself a great deal of cultivation time.

However, aside from the spiritual-type "Soul Shocking Tactic" and the functional "Aura Concealment Art," You Chen did not intend to devote too much energy to the others.

Besides those two, You Chen had also obtained three cultivation arts and martial techniques.

They were the fist technique "Cloud Movement Fist," the lightness skill "Flying on Grass," and the explosive secret art "Five Qi Evil Art."

Among them, "Cloud Movement Fist" was a water-aligned fist technique. It used Soul Power to stir the clouds and mist, making its punches difficult to predict. It was a typical slow fist technique and somewhat conflicted with You Chen's agility attack style. But from another perspective, it might be able to catch opponents off guard and become another piece of You Chen's offensive arsenal.

"Flying on Grass" had a simple name, but its effects were quite impressive.

As for the "Five Qi Evil Art," it nurtured evil qi within the five viscera and detonated it at a critical moment, explosively enhancing all aspects of the user's attributes. Although it placed a considerable burden on the five viscera, its effects were genuine.

Looking at it this way, You Chen could actually make use of all three cultivation arts and martial techniques.

But as he had said, cultivating them to Great Accomplishment or perfection would take even You Chen quite some time.

That was also why You Chen had no intention whatsoever of passing these cultivation arts and martial techniques on to Yan.

At first glance, letting Yan look through these universally applicable Self-Created Soul Skills might allow him to draw inferences from them.

But in reality, all the Self-Created Soul Skills Yan developed were exclusive to his martial soul. Giving him these would only cause him more trouble.

With that pig brain of Yan's, You Chen felt that merely understanding the contents of these cultivation arts and martial techniques would take him a considerable amount of time, let alone successfully reaching the beginner stage afterward.

You Chen had the beginner-stage mastery provided by the system, so the effects of these three cultivation arts and martial techniques were only equivalent to hundred-year soul skills.

Setting aside the fist technique and lightness skill, many people had a misconception: when transmigrating to Douluo Continent, they believed they should choose enhancement-type soul skills for low-year soul rings in the early stages so they would not become obsolete in the future.

That was completely wrong.

Enhancement effects that would never become outdated, like those of the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Pagoda, had nothing to do with soul ring age. That was simply the innate ability of the martial soul itself.

Even for enhancement soul skills, the enhancement effects of ordinary auxiliary system soul masters would vary depending on the target being enhanced.

When it came to self-enhancement, the effects of a hundred-year soul skill and a ten-thousand-year soul skill were naturally different.

The latter could still have some effect once its user became a Titled Douluo, while the former would most likely not even amount to a mosquito's leg by then.

The Five Qi Evil Art was the same for You Chen.

Its effects looked wonderful, and it was somewhat useful to the current You Chen, but he was about to absorb his fifth ring. Once he reached the Soul King level, if this secret art remained only at the beginner stage, it would be nothing more than a mosquito's leg.

For it to remain useful at the Soul Sage stage, he would need to cultivate it to at least Great Accomplishment.

And for it to have a noticeable effect even at the Titled Douluo level, he would likely need to cultivate this secret art to perfection.

But that required talent and opportunity; it was not something that could be achieved so easily.

Even if You Chen cultivated "Flying on Grass," he would not cultivate the seemingly wonderful "Five Qi Evil Art."

"Cloud Movement Fist," on the other hand, gave You Chen a faint sense of inspiration. He felt he could cultivate it a little when he had spare time. Perhaps it could truly become a decent killing soul skill.

But unlike those three cultivation arts and martial techniques, You Chen placed greater importance on the "Soul Shocking Tactic."

Even without considering his talent in spiritual power, its concealment when activated, its difficulty to defend against, and the fact that it would basically never miss once it locked onto a target made it worth learning.

Its effect was similar to "Soul Shock," but its emphasis lay in the word "shocking." It used spiritual power to trigger fear in the target, causing a brief moment of distraction. If the target's spiritual power was vastly inferior to the user's, it could even inflict severe damage on their spiritual will, causing them to develop an undying fear whenever they saw the user again in the future.

If one was born with traits such as "Dragon Might" or "Imperial Majesty," they could also grant this skill an additional intimidation-enhancing effect.

As for whether it had any other hidden uses, You Chen would have to discover them himself.

When You Chen had first obtained the "Soul Shocking Tactic," its power was stronger than the other three, but it was still limited to the category of hundred-year soul skills.

Yet after You Chen's cultivation during this period, although he had not reached the minor success stage, it was already comparable to a thousand-year soul skill.

This also showed You Chen's talent in this area.

If he devoted all his efforts to the "Soul Shocking Tactic," You Chen was confident he could cultivate it to Great Accomplishment within a few months. According to the art's description, its power could likely reach the level of a ten-thousand-year soul skill and would not become outdated even for a Titled Douluo.

This was also a good time to mention some concepts regarding soul skill age.

First, even for the same hundred-year soul skill, its power would naturally differ when used by a Titled Douluo versus a one-ring soul master.

But the difference in power came from the disparity in their Soul Power intensity.

The form of a soul skill and the amount of Soul Power infused into it generally would not change. This was a restriction imposed by the soul ring itself.

Soul ring skills were like pre-set programs. Soul masters could basically only click to activate them, then choose a target.

A large part of why many soul masters believed Self-Created Soul Skills would scale with their level and never become obsolete was that, once their level was higher, their control over Soul Power stronger, and their reserves greater, they could make the form of a soul skill more exaggerated even if the mastery of their Self-Created Soul Skill remained unchanged, forcibly increasing its power by injecting more Soul Power into it.

Using this method to forcibly elevate a soul skill that was only equivalent to a hundred-year soul skill when perfectly executed to the level of a thousand-year or ten-thousand-year soul skill would naturally waste a massive amount of Soul Power and energy.

However, when a soul master did not possess a corresponding soul ring skill, there was nothing wrong with making that choice.

Compared to soul ring skills, Self-Created Soul Skills were inherently more "free."