Soul Master

Biodata

Power Progression

The examples below document advancement within the Soul Master system, rather than the history of a single individual.

Background and Social Position

On Douluo Continent, martial-soul awakening is a major milestone. Those who possess soul power occupy a privileged position above ordinary people. Advanced Soul Master Academy students are particularly sought after by noble houses and clans 1 50.

Soul Masters also intervene in dangers affecting ordinary settlements. After Wolf Bandits attack Long Chen’s village and kill his father, arriving Soul Masters rescue the one-year-old boy from beneath the rubble. Ye Tianming and Ye Susu subsequently adopt him 1.

Institutions and Competition

• Advanced Soul Master Academies train young practitioners and field teams in the All-Continent Advanced Spirit Master Academy Elite Competition 49 50.
• Great Soul Arenas provide practical combat experience through individual and team encounters. Coordination and tactics can overcome an opposing team’s higher ranks 46 51 60.
• Martial Soul Hall recruits promising young Soul Masters to expand its influence. It also suppresses or executes evil-attribute practitioners who lose control and engage in indiscriminate slaughter 1 65.
• The Soul Master Competition offers valuable rewards: its championship prize includes three soul bones intended for Martial Soul Hall’s Golden Generation, ultimately won by Heavenly Dou Royal Academy 47 111.

Abilities & Skills

Martial Souls and Soul Power

• A martial soul determines a practitioner’s core abilities. Documented examples include tool martial souls such as the Dark Night Demonic Lute and beast martial souls such as the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon 1 21.
• Soul power fuels combat abilities but is finite. Physical conditioning, movement techniques, weapons, and close-combat skills remain important when soul skills cannot be maintained 8.
• Soul-power advancement becomes increasingly slow after level sixty. Beyond eighty, some Soul Douluos require years to gain a single level or cease progressing altogether 114 159 163.

Soul Rings and Soul Skills

• Soul rings are commonly obtained by hunting soul beasts and absorbing the rings left after their deaths 3 4 29.
• Ring absorption can increase soul power, physical strength, perception, and control over soul power 4.
• Ring age affects the power available from a skill. Long Chen’s forty-thousand-year fifth ring allows his Kui Ox skill to suppress Yan’s fifth soul skill 102.
• Not every new ring produces a different ability. Nine Heart Begonia practitioners retain healing-focused ring skills regardless of how many rings they acquire 7 218.
• Long Chen’s devouring ability is an exceptional case: it evolves existing rings from hundred-year to thousand-year, and later ten-thousand-year, strength 124 187.

Combat Specializations

Soul Bones

• Soul bones provide additional abilities independently of ring skills and can increase soul power and spiritual power 58 114.
• They can broaden a specialist’s capabilities. Ye Susu gains both an attack and a control skill from a hundred-thousand-year skull despite her healing-focused martial soul 218.
• Their rarity and value make their owners targets. Eleven hostile Soul Masters attempt to kill Long Chen and his companions to seize their soul bones 123.

Martial Soul True Body and Fusion Skills

• Martial Soul True Body becomes available through advancement associated with the seventh ring and increases combat power 114 139.
• Compatible practitioners can perform martial soul fusion skills. Long Chen and Ye Lingling merge into a golden, illusory figure through Undying Golden Body 139 159.
• Fusion strength can depend on the participants’ cultivation. Yu Xiaogang expects a breakthrough beyond level thirty to strengthen the Golden Iron Triangle’s Golden Holy Dragon 180.

Self-Created Soul Skills

• Self-created skills require talent, strong comprehension, and sufficient personal strength; few practitioners possess them 86.
• Examples include Feng Xiaotian’s Gale Wolf Thirty-Six Slash and Xie Yue’s Full Moon 86.
• Powerful techniques can exhaust their users: Feng Xiaotian’s consecutive slashes deplete his soul power and leave him unable to continue fighting 88.

Cultivation Resources and Equipment

• Storage artifacts — described by Ye Tianming as essential equipment for Soul Masters; Long Chen and Ye Lingling receive belt-like examples 3.
• Weapons — useful for close combat and training without soul skills. Long Chen receives a dagger capable of cutting metal 3 12.
• Whale gel — strengthens the physique and improves tolerance when absorbing older soul rings 10 12.
• Immortal herbs — can increase soul power, strengthen martial souls, or trigger martial-soul evolution 31 41 43.
• Soul-core condensation — compresses soul power from liquid to solid within the dantian. The rotating core draws in external soul power, improving advancement, combat power, and recovery; most practitioners do not know the method 124.

Limitations and Exceptional Cases

• Evil-attribute martial souls require control over inner demons; failure can lead to wanton killing and punishment by Martial Soul Hall 1.
• Nine Heart Begonia’s lineage restriction permits only two bearers of that martial soul to live at the same time 1.
• Transformed soul beasts can cultivate in human form. Before level sixty, Title Douluos can detect their soul-beast aura; after sixty, their mature stage makes detection much more difficult 71.
• The City of Slaughter restricts soul-ring skills. Tang San compensates with hidden weapons and his right-leg soul bone’s self-healing ability 154 157.