However, Ye Feng knew the move's shortcomings all too well.
It was passable in close combat, but once he swung it, a great deal of energy dissipated as it traveled, drastically reducing its power.
Forget Soul Masters of the same level—even a quick-reacting Agility-type Soul Scholar could easily dodge it. It wasn't as if it were a fixed Soul Skill.
Ye Feng sat up in bed, his expression serious, and raised both hands.
Two streams of pure light energy surged from his palms, each taking shape as a half-meter-long triangular Light Blade.
Maintaining two Light Blades at once caused his Soul Power consumption to spike.
Just forming them, then factoring in the estimated cost of a single slash, would use up nearly a tenth of his Soul Power.
Yet their power was nowhere near what he wanted.
High cost, low return.
It was practically a worthless skill.
Was my idea wrong? Was the Light and Shadow Martial Soul really this useless in the early stages?
No.
That wasn't right.
Ye Feng looked at the two Light Blades in his hands. Their radiance was dazzling, but the energy flowing within them seemed loose and chaotic.
What if... what if I could compress this Soul Power, this light energy, to the absolute limit?
Hiss!
A wild idea flashed through his mind like lightning splitting the night, illuminating his entire consciousness in an instant.
Ye Feng came alive at once!
That's right—compression!
But not simple compression!
The physics knowledge he had encountered in his previous life surged into his mind.
Ordinary Soul Skills were like throwing a basin of water: they covered a wide area, but their force was scattered.
What he needed to do was turn that basin of water into a jet fired from a high-pressure water gun!
How could he do that?
Break down the attribute Soul Power!
Break it down into "nanometer-scale" light particles!
Once the idea appeared, he could no longer suppress it.
Each light particle would be formed from a thread of the purest light Soul Power, free of all impurities, then solidified.
The Soul Power form of an ordinary hundred-year Soul Skill was "flowing"—its energy dissipated throughout the attack, greatly weakening its power.
But in his light-particle state, he could concentrate Soul Power into highly condensed points!
Then, he could recombine those light particles!
For instance, he could use them to form light filaments as fine as strands of hair.
Suppose an ordinary Light Blade was made up of a hundred light filaments.
Then he could make each filament out of more than a hundred tightly packed light particles!
That would directly double the Soul Power density within each filament, or even increase it by more!
More importantly, his light attribute naturally possessed a purity that other attributes could hardly match!
Fire exploded, water flowed, wind dispersed, earth crumbled. Only light could be condensed without limit!
That was an advantage unique to him!
The more Ye Feng thought about it, the more excited he became. He even found himself unable to resist doing the calculations.
According to the Soul Beast Illustrated Handbook, the Soul Skill "Wind Blade" of a hundred-year Wind Wolf had a Soul Power density roughly 1.5 times that of ordinary Soul Power.
And a single light filament could already reach a density of 1!
A single filament might seem weak, but what if ten of them were combined into a Light Blade?
Its power would easily rival an ordinary hundred-year Soul Skill!
What about twenty filaments? Forty? Eighty?
And the power of this Self-Created Soul Skill would keep growing along with his own Soul Power!
The stronger his Soul Power and mental strength became, the more light particles he could condense, and the tougher and denser the light filaments he could weave!
Now that was a true growth-type Soul Skill!
At the thought, Ye Feng nearly applauded his own genius.
A Self-Created Soul Skill didn't have to pursue some flashy effect. Its essence lay in deeply developing and understanding the characteristics of one's own Martial Soul, then imagining what could be done with them.
Take the Clear Sky Sect's founding secret art, "Ring Detonation." Wasn't its principle to concentrate all the power contained in a Soul Ring onto a hammer in an instant, unleashing destructive power beyond its limits?
At its core, that was the same idea as his "Light Particle Theory"!
Both took scattered power and concentrated it through some method, producing a geometric increase in its might!
No sooner said than done!
Ye Feng sat cross-legged, clearing his mind of all distractions and focusing entirely on his right palm.
He slowly extended his right hand. A soft golden glow appeared.
Step one: decomposition.
He summoned his mental strength and carefully probed the mass of light energy, trying to break it down from "a single whole" into independent "particles."
The process was a hundred times harder than he had imagined.
His mental strength was like a pair of invisible hands, and the work demanded extreme precision.
Sweat beaded on his temples and ran down his cheeks.
After an unknown amount of time, the shape of the light began to change ever so slightly.
It was no longer a uniform mass. Instead, it had become a nebula-like structure made up of countless tiny points of light.
Success!
Ye Feng felt a surge of delight and immediately moved on to the second step.
Control!
He used his thoughts to guide the tiny energy particles, arranging and combining them according to his wishes.
One, two, ten, a hundred...
Under the control of his mental strength, more than a hundred light particles slowly drew together, eventually forming a golden filament finer than a strand of hair.
The filament hovered at his fingertips. Though tiny, it emanated a keen sharpness that made his heart tremble.
He'd done it!
Ye Feng suppressed his excitement and kept going.
The second light filament...
The third light filament...
The fourth...
The fifth...
When the fifth filament had taken shape and floated alongside the first four, Ye Feng felt a needle-like pain stab through his brain.
His mental strength and control had both reached their limits.
He tried to form a sixth, but the light particles had become impossibly "heavy," no longer responding to his will.
"Crack..."
With a soft snap, all five filaments crumbled at once, turning back into countless specks of light before fading into the air.
"Huff... huff..."
Ye Feng panted heavily. He looked as though he had just been dragged from the water, drenched from head to toe in sweat.
Forming just five light filaments had nearly exhausted his entire mind.
Was this his limit?
Ye Feng felt reluctant to accept it.
Where was the problem?
Control!
His method of controlling his mental strength was too crude.
Focusing all his attention on one filament, then moving on to the second, was terribly inefficient and consumed too much mental energy.
He had to learn to multitask!
A cultivation method suddenly sprang from the depths of his memory—Heart Separation Control.
The Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect's closely guarded secret.
Of course, he could forget about learning such a top-tier technique.
But since a method like this existed, there had to be a less effective, commonly available version out there.
Even the most basic ability to focus on two or three things at once would be an enormous help to him right now!
If he could learn it, he could double or even triple the efficiency of forming light filaments!
And besides, his future fighting style wouldn't involve forming a Light Blade with just one hand.
He'd use both hands!
Two divine weapons, each made of more than a hundred light filaments, dancing through the air in his hands at once. The level of control that would demand...
Tsk, tsk.
Just imagining it made Ye Feng's blood surge with excitement.
Before you continue