The Reason for the Hydrogen Man's Formation!

Elsewhere, Keling City, Cassell Academy.

Before he knew it, the sun had begun to sink westward, and the sky outside gradually darkened.

"Phew! So that was how it worked!"

Inside the freshmen's dormitory, Yu Bai slowly opened his eyes at last, his gaze filled with complexity and mockery.

By comparing the cultivation process and experience that Xiao Yan had received from the Heavenly Dao Rankings—his journey from the Dou Qi Continent to becoming a Dou Emperor—Yu Bai had finally figured out how the cultivation system of Douluo Continent worked!

First came the so-called rule that one did not need to cultivate before the age of six, followed by the awakening of one's martial soul at six.

Ordinarily, unless it was a world with exceptionally high-grade energy substances, childhood in a typical world was likewise unsuitable for cultivation. Leaving aside how difficult it was for children to understand cultivation knowledge, mistakes in cultivation could harm their fragile bodies. Even if they understood the relevant knowledge, their young and frail bodies were still in their first stage of growth. Their bones, muscles, and so on had not fully developed and were too weak to withstand the ravages of cultivated energy.

Therefore, before the age of six, children were not permitted to cultivate, whether on Douluo Continent or the Dou Qi Continent!

However, compared to the Douluo Continent, where cultivation knowledge was weak—one could even call it crude—the Dou Qi Continent possessed mature knowledge of medicinal theory and alchemy. Many cultivation families used medicinal baths and similar methods from childhood to temper their children's bodies, making them stronger and broadening their muscles, bones, blood vessels, and meridians, all of which better supported their future cultivation and development!

Yet Douluo Continent had no research whatsoever in this area. As a result, throughout the countless years of its history, children could only play around before the age of six, wasting time and wasting their talent!

In this regard, Douluo Continent's cultivation was inferior even to that of many martial arts worlds!

Second was the so-called martial soul awakening at the age of six!

Put simply, it was using an Awakening Stone to draw out the martial soul hidden within every person. This was one of Douluo Continent's defining traits!

Yet whether one's cultivation talent was strong, or even whether one could cultivate at all, still depended on Innate Soul Power!

So-called Innate Soul Power was actually the amount of soul power a child's meridians could accept for the first time when, under a Soul Master's activation, the Awakening Stone and awakening formation connected to the soul power between heaven and earth and poured it into the child's body!

In other words, it measured the innate size and strength of a child's meridians, as well as the extent to which their acupoints were blocked!

However, unlike later cultivation, receiving the infusion of soul power from heaven and earth during martial soul awakening did not require opening acupoints. Thus, the degree to which Innate Soul Power filled the meridians was divided into one through ten portions, corresponding to Rank One Innate Soul Power through Innate Full Soul Power!

But at the same time, because children on Douluo Continent did not know how to nourish their meridians before the age of six, the strength of their meridians was generally similar—though there were still differences between strong and weak! This was why children with the same Innate Soul Power could still differ in cultivation speed and combat strength under certain circumstances!

Of course, children without Innate Soul Power had completely blocked meridians, which prevented them from communicating with the soul power of heaven and earth!

For Yu Bai, who possessed the knowledge of Emperor-grade Alchemy, solving such a problem was easy!

That meant that as long as Yu Bai wished it, he could refine pills or prepare medicinal liquids at any time to raise someone's so-called Innate Soul Power rank!

As for the so-called Meditation Cultivation Method, it was simply calming one's mind and, in a state free of distractions, resonating with the soul power between heaven and earth, allowing it to flow into the body and naturally accumulate as one's internal soul power!

Of course, during this process of accumulating soul power, one needed to repeatedly scour open the meridians and maintain their unobstructed state. Only then could soul power begin to accumulate!

And the bottleneck every ten ranks was actually an attempt to break through the acupoints within the body!

Yet every acupoint in the human body was as solid as dirt clogging a water pipe, while the process of soul power accumulating in the meridians was like water naturally flowing into that pipe!

As a result, the soul power cultivated in this manner was like duckweed without roots, leaving one's foundation unstable. Moreover, compared with the Dou Qi cultivated through techniques on the Dou Qi Continent, which forcibly seized energy from heaven and earth, its intensity was simply incomparable!

Therefore, when facing the same major realm barrier, cultivators on the Dou Qi Continent could use their prior accumulation and compression of Dou Qi as a foundation, allowing them to break through the bottleneck with ease after exhausting that reserve!

But on Douluo Continent, under such circumstances, without a powerful and violent influx of soul power all at once, the soul power naturally cultivated through meditation alone could not possibly break through the blockages in one's acupoints!

Besides that, martial souls also seemed to contain some mystery. Between every major realm, it was as though someone had deliberately placed a lock on one's martial soul, making it utterly impossible to continue cultivating soul power without first absorbing a Soul Ring!

Thus, killing Soul Beasts and absorbing their Soul Rings not only fulfilled the soul power requirements for a breakthrough, but also unlocked that lock upon the martial soul.

And as though it had likewise been deliberately arranged, the Soul Rings produced after Soul Beasts died contained soul skills. Yet after being absorbed by humans, they would take the human's martial soul as their basis and become corresponding soul skills!

Therefore, Yu Bai had reason to believe that the abnormalities of martial souls and the creation of soul skills were connected to some shadowy force behind the scenes.

And that hidden mastermind was very likely the gods of the God Realm!

Having sorted all this out, Yu Bai could not help raising his head, as though his gaze could pierce through the ceiling and reach the gods of the God Realm. He muttered, "Good thing this young master hasn't inherited any Heavenly Flames yet. Otherwise, I'd definitely go to the God Realm and set a fire, livening up your entire God Realm!"

After saying that, Yu Bai withdrew his gaze and examined his own meridians. Looking at the utterly insubstantial soul power within them, which had not even been refined, he clicked his tongue inwardly.

"Tsk, tsk. No wonder so many readers in my previous life called the powerhouses of Douluo Continent Hydrogen Men!"

"The soul power in these damn meridians is practically like air. During meditation, the soul power drifting between heaven and earth naturally flows into the meridians—doesn't that make them 'Hydrogen Men' filled with soul power as light as hydrogen?!"

"Looking at it this way, it makes sense that a certain God King was nearly crushed to death by a Sea God Trident weighing about as much as a roll of steel, and that his full-force strike could only punch a small hole in a city wall!"

"Still, if this young master doesn't want to embarrass himself like a certain God King in the future, it seems this soul power of mine needs to be reforged from scratch!"

With that thought, Yu Bai did not waste any time. He immediately sat cross-legged on his bed and began circulating the Emperor Grade Burning Art!

In an instant, the twenty-seventh-rank soul power within Yu Bai's body began to shrink rapidly!

At the same time, inside the freshmen's dormitory, the immense soul power of heaven and earth outside seemed drawn to Yu Bai's body, directly forming a vortex visible to the naked eye as it crazily surged into him!