Their Soul Power consumption was far higher than that of other Martial Souls, especially for True Weapon Forms and large-area Soul Skills.
A Tool Martial Soul's Soul Power was mainly used to "maintain the existence of a physical object" and "release Soul Skills." These two demands left its Soul Power reserves inherently weak:
For example, if a Tool Soul Master and a Beast Soul Master of the same level and with the same total Soul Power fought, the Tool Soul Master would be able to continuously release Soul Skills for a shorter time;
And activating a True Weapon Form not only consumed a great deal of Soul Power, but also required the Soul Master to continually use Soul Power to maintain the object's shape and hardness. Once their Soul Power ran low, the True Weapon Form would immediately disintegrate.
Some Tool Martial Souls had "structural weaknesses" and could not balance offense, defense, and agility.
A Tool Martial Soul's structure determined its function, and it could hardly ever excel at everything:
For example, heavy Tool Martial Souls—such as the Clear Sky Hammer, great axes, and heavy shields—had great offensive and defensive power, but were bulky, leaving their Soul Masters extremely slow and easy prey for agility-type Soul Masters;
Light Tool Martial Souls—such as Short Swords, throwing knives, and thin needles—were highly agile and excelled at ambushes, but had weak defenses. A single hit from a power-attack-type Soul Master could leave their user gravely injured;
Ranged Tool Martial Souls—such as bows, crossbows, and throwing darts—relied on Soul Power to form ammunition. Once it ran out, their users could only fight at close range, and their combat strength would plummet.
Finally, there were Plant-type Martial Souls. Their main advantage was their strong ability to fight for prolonged periods, with a wide variety of control, support, and poison-based abilities.
Their Soul Power recovered quickly, but their essence was that of "plant life made manifest through Soul Power."
They inherited the biological traits of plants: rooted growth, dependence on their environment, and long growth cycles. Of the three types of Martial Souls, they had the weakest active combat ability.
They were the type most dependent on their environment, and at lower levels, the easiest to crush:
They inherently lacked active mobility; taking root was a prerequisite for unleashing their combat strength.
Almost all Plant Martial Soul Soul Skills required the Martial Soul to take root in the ground
(even high-level Plant Martial Souls needed to briefly anchor themselves to the ground with Soul Power). This was their most fatal limitation:
While rooted, Plant Soul Masters could not move, making them sitting ducks;
If they forcibly broke free of their rooted state, all their Soul Skills would immediately be interrupted, and their Martial Soul would enter a weakened state as its Soul Power anchor was broken;
Even the few mobile Plant Martial Souls, such as Immortal Herbs and vines,
moved far more slowly than Beast or Tool Soul Masters, and their Soul Skills' power would greatly diminish while they were moving.
Extreme dependence on natural environments meant a sharp drop in combat strength outside them.
The flow of a Plant Martial Soul's Soul Power and the power of its Soul Skills depended entirely on the natural environment—soil, water, sunlight, and air:
In environments without soil, such as high altitudes, ice, or metal surfaces,
Plant Martial Souls could not take root, making their core control and damage-dealing Soul Skills impossible to use;
In environments lacking water or sunlight, such as deserts, underground caverns, or enclosed spaces,
their Soul Power recovery would slow, and prolonged combat could cause their Martial Souls to wither;
In polluted environments, such as poisonous mists or areas tainted by Soul Power, Plant Martial Souls could be corrupted in turn, even poisoning their Soul Masters.
Long growth cycles and weak combat ability at lower levels made them easy to suppress early on.
The growth of Plant Martial Souls followed "the laws of plant growth"; they needed time and resources for their Martial Souls to "grow and evolve":
Low-level Plant Martial Souls, such as grass, ordinary vines, and wildflowers,
had almost no active offensive ability. They could only use basic, weak control Soul Skills such as entanglement and paralysis. Against Beast or Tool Soul Masters of the same level, they could hardly fight back at all;
Even mid-level Plant Martial Souls needed to absorb large amounts of natural treasures
(such as spirit herbs and spring water) to improve their combat strength. Their growth was far slower than that of Beast and Tool Martial Souls.
They focused on control and support, lacked exceptional offensive power, and relied on their teammates.
Plant Martial Soul Soul Skills leaned heavily toward control, support, poison, and healing, with almost no innate ability to excel at offense:
Even powerful offensive Plant Martial Souls, such as Man-eating Flowers, Tyrant Flowers, and thorns,
had far less attack power than Beast or Tool Martial Souls of the same level, and their range was limited;
If Plant Soul Masters fought alone, they would be easy targets for agility-type and power-attack-type Soul Masters because they lacked offensive power and mobility. They might not even be able to protect themselves.
Of course, all this held true in the absence of divine intervention [excluding special methods, poison, and Hundred Thousand Year Soul Bone skills]. Titled Douluo crushed their opponents with every level!
Naturally, the Light and Shadow Martial Soul had both advantages and drawbacks.
Its advantage was that the Martial Soul itself had limitless potential for shaping—not that the Soul Master's realm had no upper limit.
Its essence rested on "the condensation of light-attribute Soul Power and a one-to-one replication of the user's body." This let it break free of the innate limitations of Beast, Tool, Plant, and ordinary shadow Martial Souls.
Its growth depended solely on the Soul Master's Soul Power Level, Soul Ring Configuration, and mastery of the Martial Soul. The Martial Soul itself had no inherent bottlenecks, giving it top-tier potential for growth at the level of the Martial Soul alone:
Unlike an amorphous Soul Power construct, which required constant mental calibration to maintain its shape,
a Soul Master with a fixed-body-form Martial Soul did not need to spend extra mental energy keeping its "form aligned." They only needed Soul Power to solidify the Martial Soul and mental power to maintain "synchronized combat strength."
The Martial Soul still needed enough Soul Power to condense, but as long as the Soul Power requirement was met, it could directly form a fixed shape identical to the user's body, without "falling apart or becoming blurred."
The combination of light attributes and a fixed, solid form magnified its elemental advantage and freed it from environmental suppression.
Its light attribute was deeply bound to its fixed form. That form made its light-attribute Soul Power more concentrated, completely freeing it from the environmental dependence of ordinary shadow Martial Souls. The advantage of its light attribute also increased in step with how solid its form became.
As for its drawbacks!
They were obvious: binding its fixed form to the user's body left no room for tactical changes.
Extreme dependence on the Soul Master's Soul Power and mental strength, sharply increased Soul Power consumption, fully exposed light attributes, and limited Soul Ring combinations—these were all innate traits of the Martial Soul itself.
This was evident in Huo Wu in the original story. Her greatest advantage was "maximizing fire-element output."
The drawback was that the Fire Shadow Martial Soul was a construct made entirely of fire-attribute Soul Power, with no ability to interact with other attributes. When faced with water- or ice-type Martial Souls,
its Soul Power would be directly weakened, its form would become far less solid, and its Soul Skills might lose power;
In the original story, when Blazing Fire Academy encountered the ice mist of Skywater Academy, Huo Wu's Fire Shadow Martial Soul could barely take shape. Her core Soul Skills, such as Huo Wu Shines Like the Sun, were frozen by the ice mist. It was a textbook example.
Although these special Martial Souls could maximize elemental output, their weaknesses were plain to see, and Huo Wu was a cautionary tale.
When choosing Soul Rings in the future, one would have to consider them carefully. Otherwise, skills that took an incredibly long time to unleash would be utterly useless.
As for the first three light-attribute skills, they mainly enhanced the user's attributes and strength, right?