First Cultivation and Testing the Martial Soul

"Grandmaster Gong, do we have any children in our village this year who can become Soul Masters?"

Seeing the Spirit Hall Soul Master lead the children out, the head of Fish Village walked up nervously and asked about the results of this martial soul awakening.

"Old Man Yu, congratulations. Your village has produced a true genius this year."

Gong Fenghua smiled and congratulated Old Man Yu, pointing at Yu Yan to explain:

"This child's martial soul underwent a beneficial mutation, possessing both ice and fire attributes. His innate soul power is level seven and a half, and in the future, he can definitely become a formidable Soul Master."

Most of the villagers' martial souls were ordinary fish, so Gong Fenghua attributed Yu Yan's ice and fire twin fish to a beneficial martial soul mutation.

As for why two fish formed a single martial soul, Gong Fenghua chalked it up to the sheer strangeness and variety of martial souls.

Speaking of strange, he had seen Soul Masters with a brassiere martial soul, a pig's large intestine or pig's tail martial soul, and even that trash disembodied swine martial soul from the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan.

Compared to those martial souls, Yu Yan's martial soul was merely two twin fish forming one entity—was that really so strange?

Old Man Yu, who had merely hoped for a child in the village to become a Soul Master and never dreamed of a genius appearing, asked in disbelief, "I-Is this true?"

"Of course it's true. I have no reason to lie to you either. Well, I must hurry along to the next village. You can discuss any questions with the boy."

Gong Fenghua looked up at the sky, turned to wave goodbye to Yu Yan, and left the village. He still had martial soul awakening duties to carry out and could not stay here indefinitely.

Old Man Yu skillfully placated the children who were saddened because they could not become Soul Masters, asking the parents standing nearby to take the children home.

After handling these matters, Old Man Yu came before Yu Yan, inspected the Martial Soul Awakening Certificate, and saw Yu Yan's martial soul with his own eyes:

"Xiaoyan, your talent is excellent, even better than that boy of mine. When you go to study at the Martial Soul School in the future, you must cultivate properly and strive to become a Soul Master as soon as possible."

Yu Yan was the only person in Fish Village with soul power this year, so the village's work-study student quota naturally belonged to Yu Yan.

The "boy of mine" Old Man Yu spoke of was his son, the only Soul Master in Fish Village in the past twenty years and Old Man Yu's greatest pride in this lifetime.

Due to his frequent absence from home, Yu Yan only knew that he was a two-ring Soul Grandmaster; his exact rank remained unknown.

"Grandpa Yu, don't worry, I will work hard at cultivation."

Yu Yan nodded obediently. Regarding the happiness of his future life, he would definitely cultivate in earnest.

"As long as you know that. Among the children your age in Fish Village, you are the most sensible and give the least cause for worry. Grandpa believes you will definitely cultivate well."

"Right, when you cultivate to rank ten, remember to come back and find me. I'll have my son take you to acquire a soul ring."

"I heard from my son that the first soul ring is best being a hundred-year yellow soul ring. You have great talent, so don't go randomly adding a soul ring to yourself."

"That boy of mine often sighs with regret that his first soul ring wasn't a hundred-year one. Our village now has the conditions, and I won't let you have that same regret."

On the way back to take Yu Yan home, Old Man Yu nagged endlessly, telling him about the things to watch out for after becoming a Soul Master.

Old Man Yu did not know much, but he imparted everything he knew to Yu Yan.

After escorting Yu Yan home and offering several more earnest exhortations, Old Man Yu strolled away, swaying as he went.

He planned to share the joyous news that another Soul Master had emerged in the village with his son, and incidentally mention having him help Yu Yan acquire a soul ring once Yu Yan reached rank ten.

Watching Old Man Yu depart, Yu Yan went inside his home, sat down at the table, took out the meditation method given by Gong Fenghua, and began to read it carefully.

As a student who had undergone nine years of compulsory education and successfully tested into a top-tier institution of higher learning, Yu Yan had forgotten a great deal of specific knowledge, but his way of thinking, comprehension abilities, and logical mind had not vanished with the passage of time.

The meditation method provided by Gong Fenghua was the most common one on Douroland, used by eighty percent of Soul Masters across Douroland.

The meditation method was not difficult. Combined with Gong Fenghua's superficial insights into it, Yu Yan spent over an hour figuring out how it should be practiced.

To summarize, meditation utilized one's own martial soul and soul power to draw in the ubiquitous soul power between heaven and earth.

This was also the fundamental reason why the higher the martial soul quality and the higher the innate soul power, the faster the cultivation speed.

Understanding how to cultivate, Yu Yan sat cross-legged on the bed and attempted to enter a meditative state.

Relying on his formidable mental strength, decent martial soul, and rank-seven-and-a-half innate soul power, he quickly entered the state, successfully capturing the free-floating soul power in the air and drawing the external soul power into his body.

After running a full cycle of the meditation method, the external soul power was successfully converted into his own. Feeling the soul power within his body grow a tiny fraction, Yu Yan refined and absorbed even more external soul power into his body.

In Gong Fenghua's experiential notes, many causes of failure were written down, alongside reflections and summaries; Gong Fenghua himself had barely managed to draw a sliver of soul power from the external environment in his third month, successfully mastering the meditation method.

Meditation didn't seem that difficult after all.

Succeeding on his very first attempt, Yu Yan continuously absorbed external soul power while even finding the mental bandwidth to let his mind wander.

When he opened his eyes, Yu Yan's stomach issued a protest, and the sun had drifted toward the horizon, about to set.

With a blink of the eyes, an entire afternoon had passed.

Standing in front of his doorway and stretching a massive laziness-expelling stretch, Yu Yan took out some air-dried fish slices, scooped a large crab raised in the water vat, and selected some seasonings from the small vegetable patch inside the courtyard.

Today had good family news, so he would eat well to celebrate.

After a bowl of aquatic seafood porridge that lacked refined presentation but tasted quite acceptable, Yu Yan prepared to thoroughly study his martial soul.

Ice and fire twin fish—this was the name Gong Fenghua had given this special companion martial soul after accepting his suggestion.

Spreading his palm, the ice and fire twin fish leaped out from his right hand, circling around him just as they had in the Martial Soul Awakening Sub-Hall during the day.

The ice and fire twin fish were beast martial souls composed of energy.

With a thought from Yu Yan, the ice and fire twin fish attached themselves to his two arms.

Martial Soul Possession—bestowing the power of the "beast" from a beast martial soul onto a person, thereby erupting with greater might.

The moment Martial Soul Possession was completed, Yu Yan felt his strength instantly increase by a large margin.

To test whether this was an illusion, Yu Yan approached a self-made sandbag used for practicing punches and lashed out with a fist.

With a bang, the fist easily pierced through the sandbag, leaving a hole in it as sand spilled out onto the ground through the breach.

Drawing back his fist and looking at the damage he had caused, a happy smile appeared on Yu Yan's face.

Transcendent power was really not bad at all.

Even if Douroland was the floor tile of fantasy settings, it was still fantasy. One shouldn't think that the absolute bottom student of Tsinghua and Peking Universities wasn't a Tsinghua or Peking University student.

Suppressing the joy in his heart, Yu Yan stepped closer to inspect the sandbag. He noticed that the edges of the hole he punched out bore traces of being scorched by flames.

He looked at the fire fish attached to his right arm, channeling more soul power into it, and a flame immediately manifested.

Bringing the flame close to the damaged sandbag, the cloth instantly ignited, and an unpleasant odor drifted out—the foul smell released by burning fabric that had not been washed in a long time.

Because he stood too close and lowered his guard, Yu Yan was successfully assaulted by the foul stench. Recovering his wits, he quickly withdrew and retreated backward, distancing himself from the malodorous sandbag.

Retreating to a safe position, Yu Yan produced a basin of water, intending to douse the burning sandbag.

He splashed the water on it, but the flames did not extinguish.

After splashing water three times in succession, he finally had to use the chill emitted by the ice fish, successfully extinguishing the flames.

Looking at the finally extinguished fire, immense joy welled up in Yu Yan's heart.

The fire fish's flames possessed formidable might, and the ice fish's chill—which could put out those flames—was equally potent. This was a tremendous boon for him.