Soul Ancestor

In the blink of an eye, four years had passed.

Yan was already thirteen years old.

At thirteen, in his previous life, he would have been no more than a child freshly graduated from elementary school and just entering middle school.

But on Douluo Continent, it was precisely the age when a soul master formally entered the golden period of cultivation.

Yet after four years of tempering, Yan's cultivation had left his peers far behind, making him the undisputed leader among Spirit Hall's younger generation of soul masters.

At the mere age of thirteen, he had broken and rewritten Spirit Hall's record for the youngest Soul Ancestor in history. Even Qian Renxue had not reached such a realm at Yan's age.

He had even transcended the bounds of the younger generation, charging toward higher peaks in a manner ordinary people found difficult to comprehend.

A thirteen-year-old Soul Ancestor was already destined to write his own legend in the world of soul masters.

Inside the Fire Mimicry Training Room of Spirit Hall Advanced Academy.

Yan sat cross-legged on the floor as fire elements gathered around him, flowing through the Mimicry Training Room like thick magma.

The air warped slightly beneath the searing heat, filled with the scent of sulfur and pure fire-element energy.

Yan was bare-chested, and beneath his bronze skin, it seemed as though lava flowed slowly.

The Yan God Body Refining Technique circulated at full force within him, fiercely assaulting the bottleneck of Apprentice Fifth Rank.

Over the past four years, his Soul Power cultivation had progressed more and more smoothly. From a level twenty-three Soul Grandmaster, he had soared to become a level forty-four Power Attack Type Soul Ancestor.

But his Martial Artist cultivation had slowed increasingly.

The cultivation resources Spirit Hall could provide were becoming less and less able to keep up with the expenditure required for a Martial Artist's cultivation.

Over four years, Yan had long since advanced from Apprentice Fourth Rank to Apprentice Fifth Rank.

But after that, breaking through to Apprentice Rank Six had become a painstaking grind. Only today had he finally touched the bottleneck of Apprentice Fifth Rank and gained hope of advancing further.

The Origin Energy surging through Yan's body like a great river was forcibly restrained and compressed, madly gathering toward some invisible point deep within his flesh.

Centered on his body, an invisible gravitational field suddenly erupted.

The fire elements that had originally drifted slowly through the Mimicry Training Room instantly boiled and roared, nearly transforming into dozens of scorching crimson fire serpents that danced through the air and spiraled toward Yan's body.

Extremely pure fire-element energy was violently torn free, forming visible streams of red light that entered through every pore across his body like countless rivers returning to the sea.

An unimaginable agony, as though he were being scorched by raging flames, instantly swept through Yan's entire body.

Yet Yan's expression did not change in the slightest amid such intense pain. Having been tempered countless times through Martial Artist cultivation, he had long grown accustomed to it.

After the pain came an indescribable pleasure.

Every inch of skin, every bone, every meridian, even every smallest cell greedily absorbed the energy surging toward him.

The incoming energy was savage and violent, far exceeding the limit a level-forty Soul Ancestor could contain.

Yet Yan's powerful body firmly confined it within him, turning it into nourishment for his breakthrough.

The fire elements surged and roared, while the fire-element energy within the Mimicry Training Room visibly thinned at a rapid pace.

Yan sensed it as well. His absorption of fire elements had clearly slowed.

This made Yan sigh inwardly.

The energy density of Douluo Continent was still too low. It might be sufficient for the cultivation of local soul masters, but for Yan, who cultivated the Devouring Method, it was somewhat inadequate.

A top-tier Mimicry Training Room was already the best cultivation site Yan could access at this stage, aside from treasured lands like the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well.

But it was already of little help to Yan.

Fortunately, Yan had anticipated this long ago and slowly opened his eyes.

He raised his left wrist, upon which he wore a bracelet-like Soul Tool.

This Soul Tool had not been provided by Spirit Hall, but had been acquired by Yan by chance when he had gone out to complete a mission earlier.

Although it could not compare to Tang San's Twenty-Four Moonlit Bridges, it was still an extremely high-quality Soul Tool, with a full ten cubic meters of storage space inside.

It was enough to store the precious items Yan had accumulated over the years.

Because it possessed ten cubic meters of storage space, Yan had simply and crudely named this bracelet Soul Tool Ten Directions.

With a thought, Soul Power covered it, and a dark golden piece of Ten-thousand-year Whale Rubber soon appeared in Yan's hand.

With Yan's current physical strength, Whale Rubber was already of negligible help to him. Even Ten-thousand-year Whale Rubber was only somewhat useful.

To Yan, it was like tasteless chicken ribs—too bland to eat, too regrettable to discard.

So after obtaining this piece of Ten-thousand-year Whale Rubber, Yan had not consumed it immediately.

Although Ten-thousand-year Whale Rubber could no longer significantly improve Yan's physique, the power contained within it was still fairly abundant.

Yan had kept it precisely for use in today's breakthrough.

With practiced ease, he heated and refined it before swallowing it in one gulp.

Stimulated by the flames' high temperature, the medicinal potency of the Ten-thousand-year Whale Rubber rapidly spread through Yan's body.

Yan immediately circulated the Origin Energy within his body, wrapping the medicinal potency of the Ten-thousand-year Whale Rubber and resuming his breakthrough.

In less than half a shichen, Yan had completely digested and absorbed the medicinal potency of the Ten-thousand-year Whale Rubber.

"Still not enough!"

Yan's mind remained calm as he clearly judged that this energy was sufficient to shake the bottleneck.

Thus, without hesitation, the Ten Directions Soul Guidance Device on his left wrist flashed repeatedly.

A Millennium Fire Ganoderma, entirely crimson and shaped like lingzhi but wrapped in flame-like patterns, appeared in his hand. It was a reward Yan had received for completing a mission that had greatly pleased Chrysanthemum Douluo Yue Guan.

It was one of the finest medicinal herbs in the Spirit Hall Herb Garden. Yan directly stuffed it into his mouth, chewed twice, and swallowed it.

The ganoderma melted upon entering his mouth, turning into scalding nectar as even purer fire-element energy joined the torrent.

Immediately afterward, a medicinal pellet the size of a longan, its surface shrouded in hazy red light, appeared.

It had been concocted by Spirit Hall's master alchemists using the essence blood of various fire-attributed soul beasts alongside rare medicinal herbs, and its medicinal potency was fierce.

In Yan's view, the pellet's quality was crude, but it did indeed faintly resemble a true medicinal pill.

He swallowed it directly as well.

The pill dissolved like a stream of magma sliding down his throat. Violent fire elements and medicinal potency erupted together, but Yan's powerful physique and the Yan God Body Refining Technique, pushed to its limit, firmly restrained them and transformed them into another fresh force for attacking the bottleneck.

After that, a Red Flame Fruit, a bottle of Earth Core Fire Marrow, and all manner of fire-attributed spiritual materials that were considered treasures in the soul master world—enough to incite competition among high-ranking soul masters—were taken out and consumed by Yan one after another as if they were candy beans.

If other soul masters had witnessed this scene, they would surely have been heartbroken and cursed Yan for wasting priceless treasures.

If these resources were used properly, they would be enough to cultivate several outstanding fire-attributed soul masters.

But at this moment, to Yan, they were merely nourishment for his breakthrough to Apprentice Rank Six.