Choosing the Right Teacher Is More Important Than Parents

That Super Douluo not only intervened and defeated the pursuers, but even married his only daughter—a Female Soul Master with Innate Full Soul Power—to the First Generation Sect Master.

With the help of this esteemed father-in-law, the First Generation Sect Master not only survived, but the family also gained the protection of a powerful expert. Moreover, his talent, which had never been fully developed, received the best possible cultivation under the guidance of a top expert from the same lineage. As a result, the Dragon Elephant Sect, whose inheritance had largely been severed, gained a new inheritance.

When he reached the bottleneck at Rank 90, his esteemed father-in-law went to great lengths to help him hunt down a Hundred Thousand Year Dragon Type Soul Beast for his soul ring.

Although that Super Douluo eventually died of old age after protecting the Dragon Elephant Family for sixty years, it was precisely the time he had bought for them, along with his selfless guidance toward both families, that gave the Dragon Elephant Family a chance to rise again. They transformed from the Dragon Elephant Family into the Dragon Elephant Sect and gained the ability to survive independently on the Douluo Continent.

To repay this esteemed ancestor for the grace of remaking their lives, everyone in the Dragon Elephant Sect made a decision that went against their ancestors: they simply changed both families' surnames to Chen, the same surname as that Super Douluo, and enshrined him in the ancestral hall for future generations to worship.

The earliest Dragon Elephant Martial Soul was also born during the era of that First Generation Sect Master.

Rather contrary to common sense, before the Vajra Dragon Elephant Martial Soul appeared, there had been no Dragon Elephant Martial Soul within the Dragon Elephant Sect that was born from combining part of the power of the White Armored Earth Dragon and the Diamond Mammoth. The Vajra Dragon Elephant was merely a fortunate mutation produced under extreme circumstances, not the result of improvement over generation after generation.

For the Dragon Elephant Sect, although the first Vajra Dragon Elephant Martial Soul was indeed immensely powerful, it was still a mutated Martial Soul born by accident. Whether it could be passed down reliably remained a huge problem.

Due to the unique nature of mutated Martial Souls, a Soul Master's mutated Martial Soul in the next generation might be inherited, might directly revert to the Martial Soul from before the mutation, or might even become worse.

Even if the cultivation of a Titled Douluo strengthened the bloodline, and a Hundred Thousand Year Soul Ring and Soul Bone reinforced the Martial Soul's origin, that could only make the odds more stable. It could not eliminate the inherent instability of a mutated Martial Soul.

Take Tang San's teacher, Yu Xiaogang, known throughout the martial world as the "Master Douluo," for example.

His own Martial Soul was Luo Sanpao, a Golden Sacred Dragon that had somehow degenerated into something resembling a pig-dog hybrid. He was stuck at the threshold of Rank 29, with no hope of ever becoming a Soul Elder.

After obtaining the Nine-Rank Purple Ganoderma, a supreme treasure second only to an Immortal Herb, he completed his first breakthrough and crossed the threshold of Rank 30. Later, after Tang San became a god, he advanced to the realm of Soul King.

With Tang San's Divine Power, he finally completed his transformation and became a Titled Douluo. His Martial Soul transformed into the Bright Sacred Dragon Martial Soul, which possessed most of the Golden Sacred Dragon's power. Although it lost the Golden Sacred Dragon's Golden Dragon power attribute, the Bright Sacred Dragon still belonged to the category of super Martial Souls.

Yet even so, after Yu Xiaogang married his cousin Liu Erlong, with whom he could perform a Martial Soul Fusion Skill, and had children, his descendants' Martial Souls were not Golden Sacred Dragons or even weakened Bright Sacred Dragons. Instead, they were Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragons with dense light power.

Then, with each generation of inheritance, the light power within their bloodline grew weaker and weaker. In the end, they regressed into Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragons with only a trace of Bright Sacred Dragon bloodline left, without any Golden Dragon power remaining at all.

There was much that could be said about this, but regardless, they were two Titled Douluo—Titled Douluo who had even received additional favor from gods—yet their descendants' Martial Souls could still suffer such drastic degeneration. That alone demonstrated the inheritance problem of mutated Martial Souls.

There were too many powerful mutated Martial Souls on the Douluo Continent that appeared like fleeting epiphyllums. While quite a few were passed down, even more vanished completely after a single generation. Most mutated Martial Souls either merged into the bloodlines of other Martial Souls or directly collapsed and reverted to their pre-mutation form, leaving behind only a faint possibility.

But the First Generation Sect Master's wife solved this problem.

Her Martial Soul was inherited from the Super Douluo who had changed the Dragon Elephant Sect's fate: the Green Scaled Savage Elephant, a top-tier Martial Soul with dragon blood.

Although it could not compare with the Vajra Dragon Elephant, and its quality might even have been slightly inferior to the Diamond Mammoth and White Armored Earth Dragon, it was indeed a stable fusion of dragon and elephant bloodlines. Combined with her Innate Full Soul Power talent and her Soul Douluo-level strength at the time, even setting feelings aside and considering only compatibility, she was the most suitable wife for the First Generation Sect Master.

It was precisely because of this that the Vajra Dragon Elephant Martial Soul did not vanish like a fleeting epiphyllum. Instead, it was passed down in the form of the degenerated Dragon Elephant Martial Soul, giving the Dragon Elephant Sect's descendants the possibility of awakening the Vajra Dragon Elephant Martial Soul.

Unlike the Vajra Dragon Elephant Martial Soul, which seemed to stack the attributes of the Diamond Mammoth and White Armored Earth Dragon together, the Dragon Elephant Martial Soul was indeed stronger than either the White Armored Earth Dragon or Diamond Mammoth Martial Soul alone. However, it was not so strong as to surpass them by an entire generation. Beyond an increase in basic strength, it mainly compensated to a certain degree for the Diamond Mammoth's shortcomings in speed.

The Vajra Dragon Elephant Martial Soul roughly took the form of a creature covered in golden Dragon Scales, with four thick elephant legs that transformed into dragon claws below the knees, a diamond set between its brows, dragon horns on both sides of its head, and three pairs of long tusks.

The Dragon Elephant Martial Soul, on the other hand, was covered in pale green Dragon Scales. Its limbs did not undergo Dragon Transformation, and although it possessed a diamond and dragon horns atop its head, it had only two pairs of elephant tusks. Those pale green Dragon Scales were the manifestation of the Green Scaled Savage Elephant Martial Soul's bloodline remaining within the Dragon Elephant Sect.

It could be said that if the First Generation Sect Master had not encountered that esteemed teacher and father-in-law, he would most likely have died while fleeing from Shrek and the Sea God's followers. Without the other's instruction, not only would his talent have remained undeveloped, but he would never have obtained a hundred-thousand-year ninth soul ring, much less married such a wife capable of passing down the Martial Soul and leaving behind the Dragon Elephant Martial Soul inheritance.

It was because of this esteemed teacher and father-in-law, who changed both the Dragon Elephant Sect's surname and fate, that from then on the Dragon Elephant Sect placed extraordinary importance on teacher-disciple lineage. They regarded it as something no less important than bloodline inheritance, perhaps even more precious.

After all, people could not choose what kind of parents they had, nor could they be certain what kind of talent their children would possess. But teachers and disciples truly had a choice. Coupled with the Dragon Elephant Sect's extremely protective nature, its history contained no shortage of teachers who died for their disciples, nor disciples who died for their teachers.

The Dragon Elephant Sect helped others, and others helped the Dragon Elephant Sect. That was also why, despite repeatedly suffering near-total losses of its active forces on the battlefield, the Dragon Elephant Sect had been able to continue existing—because its reputation truly spoke for itself.