Second Soul Skill, Flash Fire

Following the guidance of his soul power, the purple ring of light hovering above the corpse of the Blazing Sun Eagle drifted slowly toward Ye Chen's head, then settled over him and began to spin wildly.

After closing his eyes to enter a state of meditation, a wave of warmth instantly spread throughout his body. Ye Chen discovered that the purple ring spinning frantically around him first underwent a period of intense rejection before it finally began to slowly fuse with his body.

This purple ring was, naturally, the thousand-year Soul Ring produced after the death of the Blazing Sun Eagle.

Judging by the physical characteristics of this Soul Beast, its cultivation was likely between one thousand and two thousand years.

In the original work, Yu Xiaogang stated that the absorption limit for a Soul Master's second Soul Ring was seven hundred and sixty-four years.

But this claim was incorrect.

As long as one could ensure the quality of their Martial Soul, physical strength, and sufficient mental power, there would be no issues with absorbing a thousand-year Soul Ring for a second ring—let alone a ten-thousand-year one.

Fortunately, absorbing a thousand-year Soul Ring did not require the participation of mental power, so one only needed to consider whether the Martial Soul quality and physical strength were sufficiently outstanding.

He was not worried about the Martial Soul quality; what concerned Ye Chen was his physical strength.

To improve his physical strength, he had spent five days gambling in the Great Soul Arena of Heaven Dou City to earn money. After finally scraping together two thousand Gold Soul Coins, he had spent every last one on Whale Rubber.

After consuming three pieces of thousand-year Whale Rubber, Ye Chen clearly felt that the endurance of his muscles, bones, and meridians had improved significantly, which in turn further enhanced the overall strength of his Body Martial Soul.

With the addition of his level thirty soul power, there would be no problem at all in absorbing a thousand-year second Soul Ring beyond his rank given his current physical strength.

Facts proved that Ye Chen was right, because the thousand-year second Soul Ring spinning wildly around him became docile after only half an hour of intense rejection.

During the absorption process, not only was there no pain, but the impact of the thousand-year Soul Ring's energy actually created a sensation of a full-body massage, leaving him feeling refreshed.

After enjoying this comfort, Ye Chen completed the absorption of his thousand-year second Soul Ring.

Countless circles of soul power erupted from his body simultaneously; this was a sign of a rise in soul power.

A rise in soul power meant that the level bottleneck had been broken.

The second Soul Ring had been successfully absorbed!

Before absorbing the second Soul Ring, he had already accumulated thirty levels of soul power.

And by absorbing the thousand-year second Soul Ring beyond his rank, he had gained another four levels of soul power.

Adding these together, Ye Chen's soul power jumped fourteen levels from his level twenty bottleneck; he was now at level thirty-four and could once again set out to obtain a third Soul Ring.

As for the second Soul Skill attached to the second Soul Ring, it was named Flash Fire.

From the insights gained while absorbing the Soul Ring, he learned that the second Soul Skill, Flash Fire, was born from combining the Blazing Sun Eagle's innate fire-drawing talent with the origin of Combusken as a Pokemon Martial Soul.

Within half an hour of activating this skill, Combusken would enter the Flash Fire state, becoming immune to fire-attribute attacks or fire-attribute recoil damage, while also increasing the power of its next fire-attribute skill by one hundred percent.

Furthermore, the Flash Fire state could absorb surrounding light and heat energy into the body. Each time it absorbed surrounding light and heat energy, it could gain a one percent comprehensive physical recovery.

The richer the surrounding light and heat energy, the better the effect of the comprehensive physical recovery, which included recovering from injuries, stamina, soul power, and mental power, though it could not recover from abnormal statuses like poisoning or paralysis.

After grasping the information related to the second Soul Skill, Flash Fire, Ye Chen smiled with satisfaction. The fact that this skill came with an additional therapeutic effect for comprehensive physical recovery was undoubtedly a pleasant surprise.

What was most surprising was that the second Soul Skill, Flash Fire, could not only provide immunity to fire-attribute attacks but also immunity to fire-attribute recoil damage.

Explosive Eight-Stage Kick was currently a Fighting-type skill, the fundamental reason being that it was based on the Fighting-type skill Double Kick.

If it were based on the fire-attribute skill Blaze Kick, then Explosive Eight-Stage Kick would become a fire-attribute skill.

When Explosive Eight-Stage Kick caused fire-attribute recoil damage to Combusken, Combusken could rely on the Flash Fire state to negate the damage, while also boosting the power of all eight Blaze Kick strikes by one hundred percent.

And if he were to fight in a place rich in light and heat energy, Combusken could rely on the Flash Fire state to absorb that energy for comprehensive physical recovery, making it virtually invincible.

Thinking of this, Ye Chen immediately formed a plan for his third Soul Ring.

The third Soul Skill attached to this third Soul Ring could be used to find a transformation-type skill that increased the surrounding light and heat energy.

For example, changing the weather within a certain range to a sunny day; as the sun became more intense, the light and heat energy in the area would naturally increase.

However, finding a Soul Beast capable of changing the weather was somewhat unrealistic, and there was no information describing such Soul Beasts in the original work.

After pondering for a while, Ye Chen felt he did not need to rush to absorb a third Soul Ring to advance.

Because after advancing to a two-ring Soul Grand Master, the level restriction had been lifted, and he could now accelerate his soul power growth through the feedback of combat experience.

Since he was going to live in seclusion in the Sunset Forest for this period anyway, he might as well grind monsters to level up while searching for a Soul Beast suitable for his third Soul Ring.

Holding this thought, Ye Chen began his life of seclusion in the Sunset Forest.

His current strength was not enough to defeat a ten-thousand-year Soul Beast, so he dared not easily step into the Core Zone of the Sunset Forest, wandering only in the Outer Zone every day.

The distribution of Soul Beasts in the Outer Zone also followed a pattern.

Using the central area of the Outer Zone as a dividing line, the closer one was to the forest entrance, the weaker the Soul Beasts were. The closer one was to the Core Zone, the stronger the Soul Beasts became.

And the Soul Beasts living in the central area of the Outer Zone generally had cultivation levels between two thousand and five thousand years.

At first, Ye Chen only dared to live in seclusion in the part of the Outer Zone near the forest entrance, as it was safer.

His daily routine was very simple: he would enter the central area of the Outer Zone during the day to find Soul Beasts to fight, and at night, he would exit the Sunset Forest to sleep near the entrance.

Ever since obtaining the second Soul Skill, Flash Fire, Combusken had a means to absorb light and heat energy to recover its physical state. This greatly increased its endurance when the sun was intense during the day, allowing it to fight more times each day and defeat Soul Beasts with higher cultivation levels.

In every battle against a Soul Beast, not only did Ye Chen gain combat experience feedback from his Combusken Martial Soul, but Combusken itself also accumulated a wealth of practical combat experience.

With Ye Chen's careful guidance, Combusken developed the skills it possessed, improving and perfecting them through constant combat.

Finally, after half a year, Combusken mastered an entirely new combat style.

Compared to before, this new combat style had far fewer flashy moves, focusing more on using the simplest and most effective methods to take down the enemy.

The general strategy was that if an enemy engaged in melee combat, it would use Focus Energy to increase the chance of hitting vital points, then launch a fierce assault on the enemy's vitals using the Slash skill of its arms and the Double Kick skill of its legs, aiming to incapacitate the enemy in a single round of close-quarters combat.