"The Soul Core..."
As Kong Deming murmured to himself, a flash of inspiration struck him.
He slowly rose to his feet and, with his hands clasped behind his back, looked toward Xu Tianyao, who was still struggling to maintain his balance at the center of the device.
It seemed he had thought of something. He understood.
Why were Titled Douluo so powerful?
Apart from their Soul Rings, Soul Bones, and Martial Souls themselves, there was one point that mattered even more: the Soul Core.
Whenever a Soul Master broke through to become a Titled Douluo, he would further compress the vast amount of liquid Soul Power within his body, eventually forming a constantly rotating core.
That core was like a heart that never stopped beating.
It constantly absorbed Soul Power, constantly converted Soul Power, constantly stored Soul Power.
It gave Titled Douluo far greater endurance and explosive power than ordinary Soul Masters.
Xu Tianyao's problem, fundamentally, was not that he lacked Soul Power, nor that he needed to store it.
His problem was that two repelling types of Soul Power could not coexist. The Soul Power produced through meditation was completely unusable.
The Sunlight Martial Soul produced Solar Soul Power.
The Moon Martial Soul produced Lunar Soul Power.
The two were incompatible.
As long as he cultivated both at once, they would clash inside his body.
In that case... why not create a fusion device by hand?
A Soul Core specifically designed to handle these two forces.
The light in Kong Deming's eyes grew brighter and brighter.
If the Soul Core of a Titled Douluo was a storage device,
then Xu Tianyao's future Soul Core could become a converter.
It would absorb Solar Soul Power and Lunar Soul Power at the same time.
Then, through a special method of compression and fusion, it would ultimately give rise to an entirely new kind of power.
A Soul Power with the properties of both the sun and the moon—in other words, Sun-Moon Soul Power!
At the thought, Kong Deming could hardly stop himself from clenching his fists.
The idea was bold, but in theory, it was entirely feasible.
If it worked, Xu Tianyao would truly be able to cultivate both Martial Souls at the same time.
He could even bring the advantages of Twin Martial Souls into full play.
However, Kong Deming soon furrowed his brow again, because the problem still remained.
The rate at which Sun-Moon Soul Power gathered was simply too slow.
Relying on the device to produce this so-called Sun-Moon Soul Power was just too inefficient.
Judging by what he had observed, after an entire night, they would probably struggle to produce even five complete strands of Sun-Moon Soul Power.
Yet to condense a Soul Core, Soul Power first had to be compressed into a liquid.
A hundred strands made one drop. Then the liquid had to be compressed further, with a hundred drops condensing into one core.
By that calculation,
they would need a full ten thousand strands of Soul Power. At his current cultivation rate, it would take at least six or seven years.
Spending so long on a hypothetical Soul Core was clearly out of the question.
If they failed, all six or seven years would be wasted—and those were the golden years of a Soul Master's cultivation.
At the thought, Kong Deming's gaze gradually grew profound. Before long, he had come up with a solution.
It looks like... it's time to get Tianyao his First Soul Ring.
The improvement a Soul Ring brought was not limited to a Soul Skill.
It also caused a tremendous increase in one's total Soul Power. As long as he had a First Soul Ring to build upon,
the rate at which he converted Sun-Moon Soul Power would increase several times over.
With his research and the help of medicinal herbs,
perhaps they really could condense the first Sun-Moon Soul Core within a year.
If they succeeded, Xu Tianyao would embark on a path unlike any that had come before—a path Kong Deming himself had never seen.
Time passed slowly. When the eastern sky began to pale like the belly of a fish,
the two core ores in the Sun-Moon Dual Coexistence Device finally ran out of energy.
Hum! With a faint tremor, the entire device gradually stopped operating.
Xu Tianyao slowly opened his eyes.
After a sleepless night of cultivation and continuous exertion, his spirit was close to its limit.
His face was pale, his steps unsteady, and he looked as though he had been completely wrung dry.
He had barely stepped out of the device before he lost control of his legs. He stumbled forward several times and nearly fell.
Kong Deming had already prepared a pill and held it out to Xu Tianyao.
"Take this right away."
Xu Tianyao took the pill and swallowed it without hesitation.
The next second, a cool sensation rushed into his mind.
His muddled consciousness felt as if a basin of ice water had been thrown over it, and he immediately felt much more alert.
"Clear Consciousness Pill."
As soon as Xu Tianyao's mind cleared, he could no longer contain his excitement.
He hurried over to Kong Deming and asked eagerly, "Grandfather! How did it go?"
"Did I succeed?"
"Did you find a way to solve it?"
Looking at the little fellow before him, his face full of hope and his heart full of anxiety,
Kong Deming couldn't help smiling. His usually stern eyes softened with affection.
"You succeeded."
"And even more than your grandfather expected."
At those words, Xu Tianyao clenched his fists, overjoyed.
Kong Deming continued, "Don't worry. We have a direction for solving your problem now."
"Once you obtain your First Soul Ring, your grandfather will be confident of completely resolving the conflict between your Twin Martial Souls."
Hearing such confident words from Kong Deming, Xu Tianyao finally let out a long breath.
The heavy stone hanging over his heart had finally fallen.
It really is different when the continent's greatest Soul Engineer has your back.
Other people might have to spend their whole lives searching for a solution to a problem like this.
Yet Kong Deming had found one in a single night.
But before long, Xu Tianyao thought of another crucial question.
His grandfather had just mentioned hunting for a First Soul Ring. Somewhat puzzled, he asked, "Grandfather, I have another question."
"You said before that if I wanted to preserve the advantages of my Twin Martial Souls, I'd have to cultivate both Martial Souls at the same time."
"But if that's the case, what should I do when I obtain my First Soul Ring?"
"Would I have to attach Soul Rings to both Martial Souls at once?"
As he spoke, Xu Tianyao's expression grew serious.
"If I absorb two Soul Rings at once, I'd be wasting one of the Soul Ring slots on a Martial Soul."
"And once the powers of two completely different Soul Beasts entered my body, wouldn't they immediately go out of control?"
"I might explode before I even succeeded."
After hearing him out, a note of approval flashed through Kong Deming's eyes.
To consider this at just six years old already put him far ahead of his peers.
He reached out and gently ruffled Xu Tianyao's hair.
"Tianyao."
"You're right to be concerned."
"But you've overlooked one thing."
"Who told you that you had to attach Soul Rings to both Martial Souls at the same time?"
Xu Tianyao froze. Wasn't that how it worked?
Kong Deming explained carefully, "According to your grandfather's plan, you only need to attach a First Soul Ring to one of your Martial Souls."
"And the higher the quality of this Soul Ring, the better."
"As long as we can obtain a sufficiently vast foundation of Soul Power, we'll have achieved our goal."
Xu Tianyao blinked, still not quite understanding what Kong Deming meant. "Then what about the other Martial Soul?"
Kong Deming smiled calmly. "We just need to make up the difference."
"It's only the First Soul Ring stage. The gap between the two forces is nowhere near enough to cause an imbalance."
"Your grandfather can use special medicinal herbs to make up for the energy the other side is lacking."
"Once the Sun-Moon Soul Core has successfully condensed, none of these problems will matter anymore."
"Whether Solar Soul Power is more abundant or Lunar Soul Power is stronger,"
"both will ultimately be converted by the Soul Core into a unified Sun-Moon Soul Power."
"By then, they will no longer be opposing forces, but two sides of the same power."
Hearing this, Xu Tianyao finally understood completely.
Before you continue