Douluo: Starting by Forging a Gun Chapter 43

The balance between destruction and restoration was broken, and the scales gradually tilted. As Shen Feng's body slowly recovered, his periods of consciousness grew longer.

After grasping the crisis he was deeply mired in, Shen Feng immediately abandoned any thoughts of giving up on life.

After all, having already glimpsed hope, how could he easily abandon this hard-won opportunity?

Subsequently, Shen Feng took advantage of his brief moments of clarity to consciously mobilize the power within his body, gradually refining the extreme water and fire energy released by the Water and Fire Dragon Crystal.

At first, the refinement did not go smoothly.

It was not for any other reason than the fact that the energy density within the Water and Fire Dragon Crystal was far too great, far exceeding the soul power within Shen Feng's body.

The Water and Fire Dragon Kings were, after all, powerhouses at the level of God Kings during their lifetimes; the power contained within their dragon crystals was naturally divine power, which was superior to soul power.

Although, after being washed away by the river of time and combined with the low energy density of the Douluo Continent, this power had naturally fallen from the rank of divine power after tens of thousands of years of dissipation.

Even so, the density of this power was not something ordinary soul power could compare to.

If soul power were likened to a gaseous state and divine power to a solid state, then the energy inside the dragon crystal at this moment was in a liquid state, existing between gas and solid.

The difficulty of using gaseous soul power to refine liquid semi-divine power can be imagined.

It was no different from water dripping through stone.

Fortunately, this grueling, slow-grinding work was not entirely without shortcuts.

Having previously completely refined the Octagonal Mysterious Ice Grass and the Infernal Delicate Apricot, Shen Feng's body already contained a wisp of extreme water and fire elemental power.

Carefully drawing out this power, Shen Feng used a small force to leverage a greater one, and after a month of constant attempts, he finally refined a sliver of the Water and Fire Dragon Crystal's power.

Following that, everything began to proceed logically and methodically.

Pain knows no time, and neither does cultivation.

It might have been three months, or perhaps four; as Shen Feng refined the Water and Fire Dragon Crystal, all the soul power in his body became tainted by the extreme water and fire elements, and even his dantian turned into a color that was half red and half blue.

At this point, Shen Feng had already touched the limit of his dantian's capacity.

He was currently only a small level 40 Soul Elder, and even with his Innate Full Soul Power, without having obtained a fourth soul ring, the size of his dantian could not possibly exceed that of the most ordinary Soul Ancestor.

Moreover, he had previously completely refined the Octagonal Mysterious Ice Grass and the Infernal Delicate Apricot, and coupled with the refinement of so much water and fire elemental power, the soul power within Shen Feng's body had long since far exceeded the limit a Soul Ancestor could contain.

According to Shen Feng's own estimation, if he were to go and absorb a fourth soul ring now, he would immediately be able to obtain a fifth soul ring.

Storing Soul King-level soul power within the dantian of a Soul Elder without exploding to death was already enough to prove the toughness of Shen Feng's body.

But the biggest trouble was not this, but the fact that even now, Shen Feng still could not break free from the force field formed by the Water and Fire Dragon Crystal.

Unable to escape meant that everything he had done previously was in vain; even if the erosion of the water and fire elements on him had stopped, he still had no way to return to land.

In other words, Shen Feng was now sealed here by the power of the Water and Fire Dragon Crystal.

If he didn't want to die of old age in this godforsaken place, Shen Feng had no choice but to find another way and change his direction of effort.

Since the size of his dantian was fixed, he would compress his soul power, turning gaseous soul power into liquid soul power, or even compressing it into a solid state.

In this way, a dantian of the same size could naturally hold more soul power, and higher-quality soul power could naturally bring him more powerful strength.

However, wanting to compress gaseous soul power into liquid soul power was by no means a simple matter.

First of all, limited by the realm of the soul master, the gaseous soul power within the dantian was insufficient; even if he worked himself to death, it would be impossible to condense even a sliver of liquid soul power.

These were the results of experiments Shen Feng had conducted himself back in the day.

As a transmigrator influenced by numerous web novels from his past life, how could Shen Feng have never thought of compressing soul power to build a more solid foundation, seeking to be invincible at the same level and fight across ranks?

What's more, he possessed the aptitude of Innate Full Soul Power; even if higher-density soul power would slow down his cultivation speed, he firmly believed that he would not fall too far behind others.

But a hypothesis is just a hypothesis, and reality is always more cruel than theory; otherwise, Yu Xiaogang would have long since become world-renowned.

There are some things that, if you haven't reached that realm, you simply cannot see the scenery of that realm.

When he was a one-ring soul master, Shen Feng had quietly tried to compress his soul power, but it was simply impossible to do.

Later, after asking his parents, he learned that the quantity of gaseous soul power within the dantian was insufficient, making it impossible to compress into a liquid state.

At the very least, the amount of soul power at the Soul King realm could not achieve it.

Unwilling to give up, Shen Feng went to ask the strongest person he could reach at the time, the Soul Saint Flender.

Only then did he learn that the soul power within a Soul Saint's body was only between a gaseous and liquid state, and had not yet formed true liquid soul power.

Don't ask; if you ask, it's because the quantity isn't enough, so you can't compress that so-called "quality."

It wasn't until many years later, when he met Dugu Bo, a nine-ring Title Douluo, that all of Shen Feng's doubts were finally resolved.

It turned out that liquid soul power was the hallmark of a Soul Douluo, while solid soul power was the hallmark of a Title Douluo.

The reason why a Soul Saint would experience a period of weakness after using their seventh soul skill, the Avatar of the Martial Soul, was because the semi-liquid soul power within their body was not durable.

One must know that once a soul master uses the Avatar of the Martial Soul, all their first to sixth soul skills have no cooldown and can be used at will.

With such a massive consumption, how could they not be weak?

Conversely, once a soul master reached the eight-ring Soul Douluo realm, the soul power within their body had completely transformed into a liquid state, providing a more sufficient supply of soul power, and this so-called period of weakness naturally ceased to exist.

As for those at the nine-ring Title Douluo realm, they could fight for three days and three nights at the drop of a hat, and if they were determined to escape, they could fight across thousands of miles while still maintaining a certain level of combat effectiveness.

This was precisely because their soul power was of a higher-level solid state, which allowed them to sustain high-intensity battles for days.

After all, if a Soul Saint uses their seventh soul skill, the Avatar of the Martial Soul, they would be weakened for an entire week. Without a more efficient form of solid soul power, wouldn't a Title Douluo lose half their life just by using a ninth soul skill once?

Shen Feng was currently only at the level of a three-ring Soul Elder, and the amount of soul power stored within his body was, at most, equivalent to that of a level 50 pseudo-Soul King.

However, one must not forget that outside his body, he had the Water and Fire Dragon Crystal, two massive energy sources, providing him with a continuous supply of nourishment.

Recalling the method for condensing soul power he had pestered Dugu Bo to teach him, Shen Feng immersed his consciousness entirely into his dantian, cautiously manipulating the gaseous soul power within to form a vortex, using a single point to influence the whole.

Relying on Shen Feng's soul power control, this step was easy to achieve.

The vortex formed slowly. If he were a level 80 quasi-Soul Douluo, he could easily condense liquid soul power at this moment by utilizing the massive influx of soul power absorbed during the acquisition of an eighth soul ring.

But Shen Feng could not, as the gaseous soul power within his body was simply too scarce.

Therefore, he could only stabilize the vortex while simultaneously refining the power of the Water and Fire Dragon Crystal. He had to multitask, focusing with all his might to ensure a steady flow, using the slow and patient process of grinding to condense the initial liquid soul power.

The Great Dao is simple; the process of condensing gaseous soul power into liquid is, in fact, identical to the formation of stars in the universe.

The dantian is the universe, the rotating vortex is a galaxy yet to be formed, and those gaseous soul power molecules are like the dust of the cosmos.

As the vortex rotates, the gaseous soul power molecules collide with one another, forming larger soul power molecules.

If one's strength is too weak, the resilience of the dantian will be insufficient, and the number of gaseous molecules it can contain will be too low, causing the probability of collisions to drop sharply.

In this way, it would be impossible to form true liquid soul power.

At this moment, Shen Feng was constantly refining the power of the Water and Fire Dragon Crystal, which was equivalent to continuously pumping gaseous soul power molecules into his dantian, increasing the probability of their collision.

This method was extremely dangerous; after all, Shen Feng's dantian had a limit to its capacity, while the power of the Water and Fire Dragon Crystal was, for him, infinite.

Dealing with the infinite using the finite, Shen Feng was like a reservoir with limited capacity.

He needed to pour water in while simultaneously controlling the reservoir's load limit to release water, filtering out the sediment along the way.

One moment of carelessness, and Shen Feng would be like those reservoirs that held too much floodwater—the dam would collapse, and he would be destroyed in an instant.

Therefore, everything had to be done with extreme, meticulous caution.

Time passed unknowingly, and he did not know how many days and nights had gone by. Just as Shen Feng felt he could no longer hold on, the gaseous soul power within his body finally showed signs of condensation.

The vortex in his dantian slowly became viscous, as gaseous soul power molecules merged in pairs and then in groups of four.

As more and more soul power molecules gathered, the density of the soul power increased; the light rose, and the heavy sank.

Ding-dong—

Suddenly, Shen Feng felt as if he heard the sound of water droplets falling.

A single drop of liquid soul power, finally too heavy for itself, broke away from the vortex and fell to the bottom of the dantian.

The next moment, more and more liquid soul power formed, and to his surprise, a light, drizzling rain of liquid soul power began to fall within his dantian.

The drizzling rain of soul power fell, and soon a small lake formed within Shen Feng's dantian.

The lake was half milky white and half crimson, clearly delineated, with some unconverted gaseous soul power floating above it like a mist.

At a glance, it looked exactly like the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well, magnificent and beautiful.

Before he could even appreciate his achievement, as soon as the soul power converted into liquid, Shen Feng felt an even more massive force sweep through his entire body, beginning to constantly reshape his physique.

Since the soul power had converted into liquid, the hardware within his body, such as his meridians, naturally had to be upgraded accordingly.

Fortunately, with the Water and Fire Dragon Crystal present and no shortage of energy, the transformation of Shen Feng's body was extremely rapid.

Coupled with the fact that his body was already far superior to other soul masters of the same level, this transformation was completed in just a few short days.

A few days later, Shen Feng awoke from his cultivation and found his entire body feeling refreshed. The excess energy from the Water and Fire Dragon Crystal coursing through him could no longer cause him any harm.

In other words, after experiencing countless hardships, Shen Feng had achieved true immunity to water and fire elements, becoming truly impervious to them.

Beyond that, Shen Feng's physical strength had also been greatly enhanced.

His physical power was comparable to a six-ring Soul Emperor, his physical defense was comparable to a seven-ring Soul Saint, and the resilience of his meridians had improved the most, being not much different from that of an eight-ring Soul Douluo.

Even his spiritual power, which was the most difficult to improve, had undergone torture comparable to the eighteen levels of hell, and Shen Feng was now capable of projecting his spirit outward.

If one were to compare him to someone, it would be Tang San after he had consumed the Wangchuan Autumn Dew before participating in the Elite Advanced Soul Master Academy Competition in the original work.

If the age of absorbed soul rings were the standard, Shen Feng estimated that a soul ring between 20,000 and 30,000 years would be absolutely no problem.

However, even with such a level of improvement, he still couldn't break free from the shackles of the Water and Fire Dragon Crystal.

Shen Feng discovered that although the soul power within his body and the energy within the Water and Fire Dragon Crystal were both liquid, the energy inside the crystal still suppressed him in terms of sheer volume.

When his soul power was gaseous, he had no ability to resist and could only passively endure the pain of the excessive water and fire elements flooding his body.

Now that it had become liquid soul power, although the pain was gone, the massive amount of water and fire elements could still bind him, forcing him to passively act as a living transit station.

Just like a sailboat caught in a whirlpool, he could only passively endure everything.

There was no other way; Shen Feng had no choice but to continue refining the dragon crystal in exchange for greater improvements in strength.

As his dantian gradually filled, Shen Feng immediately discovered another major problem.

That was, the capacity of his dantian was limited.

This time, it wasn't a lack of space, but a lack of load-bearing capacity.

It was like a human who could only carry three hundred pounds; no matter how high the sky was, it had nothing to do with his carrying capacity.

Shen Feng was currently facing exactly this kind of trouble.

Previously, his dantian had been filled with gaseous soul power, and even when it was completely saturated, Shen Feng had only felt a slight sense of bloating.

That was why he had been able to continue refining the power of the Water and Fire Dragon Crystal in that state, increasing the density of the soul power molecules within his dantian until they finally formed liquid soul power.

But now that it had been replaced by liquid soul power, Shen Feng felt his dantian had already reached its load-bearing limit after being only one-third full.

At this moment, Shen Feng's dantian was like a bag; it could be easily filled with cotton, but when filled with water, it could only hold a third before the bottom would burst.

If the bag were replaced by his dantian, then if the dantian leaked, Shen Feng would naturally lose his life.

Once he lost his power, the water pressure at the bottom of the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well alone would instantly crush him into a meat patty.

Since the quantity had reached its limit, Shen Feng had no choice but to press on and focus on quality.

He would compress the liquid soul power into solid soul power, reaching the level of a Title Douluo in one fell swoop.

Although this would make his future cultivation difficulty comparable to that of a Title Douluo, he could not worry about that now, not when he needed to escape the barrier formed by the Water and Fire Dragon Crystal.

The method for solidifying soul power was not much different from the method for liquefying it; it was merely a transition from a gaseous spiral to a liquid spiral.

Because the liquid soul power within his body was similar to the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well—one eye giving birth to two, the two poles mutually restraining each other.

To avoid the water and fire soul powers being incompatible and causing the solidification process to become overly difficult, Shen Feng formed two soul power vortices in one breath.

One was milky white, the other crimson red.

As soon as the two soul power vortices formed, they began to interfere with each other, creating a Taiji pattern that rotated slowly around an invisible point, just like the Water and Fire Dragon Crystal that had trapped him.

There was no sun or moon to be seen underwater, and the only things emitting light were those two dragon crystals, so by this time, Shen Feng had long since lost track of time.