Starlight Strike

Jiang Lan only thought for a moment before selecting a skill from Starlight King's skill pool—Starlight Strike.

In Seer, Starlight Strike was practically a god-tier opening move. Its Priority +3 trait all but guaranteed that it would strike first.

Moreover, Starlight Strike could dispel an opponent's enhanced state.

If the dispel succeeded, the opponent's attack damage could not exceed 200 points for two turns.

If the opponent was not in an enhanced state, all of their health recovery effects would be reduced by 50% for two turns, while the user would be immune to all abnormal statuses and stat-reduction effects for two turns.

Of course, those were merely the skill's effects in the game.

As for its real-world effects...

The Priority +3 effect of Starlight Strike had manifested as two ways of using it.

The first was teleportation.

The user could freely relocate anywhere within a twenty-meter radius, and the teleportation range would increase along with their Soul Power Level.

The second was high-speed movement.

While the skill remained active, the user could move at speeds comparable to teleportation. It could be used on land, underwater, or in the air, and its speed would increase along with their Soul Power Level.

At the same time, the buff-dispelling effect had been retained. Any enemy struck by Starlight Strike, whether their enhancement came from an Auxiliary Soul Master's support or from themselves, would have all enhancement effects directly dispelled, regardless of level.

If I don't like your buffs, I'll just dispel them!

However, the additional effects of Starlight Strike had changed from two turns to two minutes.

If it successfully dispelled an enhancement, then for the next two minutes, the Soul Master's Soul Skills would deal no more than 20% of their original power, while healing Soul Skills would have their effects halved. If the opponent was not in an enhanced state, Jiang Lan would be immune to all abnormal statuses and debuffs for the next two minutes.

For example, control and debuff Soul Skills such as Ice Seal, paralysis, poison, curses, and weakness.

Two minutes might have seemed short, but his Starlight Strike had no cooldown.

In other words, as long as he had enough Soul Power, those two minutes could be extended indefinitely.

What kind of dirty trick was this?

Upon learning the effects of his Soul Skill, Jiang Lan nearly lost it on the spot.

How was anyone supposed to fight this? They might as well declare me the winner already.

So a blatant cheat counted as a minor cheat, and a minor cheat didn't count as cheating, huh?

Jiang Lan slowly opened his eyes, immediately feeling a tightness across his body.

Looking down, he saw that his once well-fitting cotton clothes had been ripped apart by his enlarged body.

That Millennium Soul Ring had increased his height by at least ten centimeters. He was now roughly 1.3 meters tall, and muscle definition had appeared across his body.

If he used Martial Soul Possession, his height would probably surge again, and his muscles would become even more pronounced.

Hormone Continent, indeed...

"Lan'er, what is your first Soul Skill?" Seeing Jiang Lan awaken, Shui Qinghan hurriedly asked.

"My first Soul Skill is called Flash Strike. Its effects are..." Jiang Lan's expression was subtle as he briefly explained the effects of his first Soul Skill to Shui Qinghan.

Shui Qinghan fell silent for a long while before slowly uttering two words.

"Terrifying!"

One had to know that a Soul Master's Martial Soul Avatar was itself a type of enhancement Soul Skill.

Directly dispelling enhancement effects was equivalent to crippling a Soul Master's greatest trump card.

Wasn't the reason Soul Sages marked the dividing line between high-level and mid-level Soul Masters precisely because Soul Sages possessed Martial Soul Avatars?

Without a Martial Soul Avatar, what difference was there between a Soul Sage and a Soul Emperor?

Oh, Soul Emperors would not fall into a weakened state when their Martial Soul Avatars were broken, but Soul Sages would.

Shui Qinghan truly could not keep herself together.

She had never imagined that a Martial Soul Avatar could actually become a Soul Master's weakness.

"Lan'er, never tell anyone the true effects of your first Soul Skill. That includes my daughter, your senior sister. If word gets out, it could bring about your death." Shui Qinghan took a deep breath, suppressing her shock as she warned him.

The Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect, which styled itself as possessing the world's number one support Tool Martial Soul, was not an opponent to take lightly.

If they learned of Lan'er's first Soul Skill, they would certainly eliminate him in secret.

The Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect had done plenty of such things.

Not only did the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect assassinate talented commoners, but they also openly and covertly suppressed exceptionally gifted Auxiliary Soul Masters, afraid that those talented support Soul Masters would steal the Seven Treasure Glazed Pagoda's title as the world's number one support Martial Soul.

After all, no matter how powerful the Seven Treasure Glazed Pagoda's support abilities were, its users could ultimately only cultivate to the Soul Sage realm.

Yet those exceptionally gifted Auxiliary Soul Masters would not stop at the Soul Sage realm.

If Nine-Heart Begonia were not passed down through a single lineage each generation, and if it were not a purely healing Martial Soul with extensive connections, the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect would never have allowed this Martial Soul, which could threaten the Seven Treasure Glazed Pagoda's status, to continue being passed down.

"Yes, Teacher!" Jiang Lan nodded with a solemn expression.

"It is already getting late. Teacher will take you to stay at the nearby Hunter Soul Town for the night." Shui Qinghan gently stroked Jiang Lan's head as she spoke.

Lan'er's Lord of Tides Martial Soul was far beyond anything she had imagined in quality. As long as Lan'er could grow smoothly, the title of world's number one Beast Martial Soul would likely change hands.

Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon?

Heh. Before her disciple's Lord of Tides Martial Soul, it was nothing.

After speaking, Shui Qinghan reached out, picked Jiang Lan up, tucked him beneath her arm, and flew toward the nearby Hunter Soul Town.

By then, the lead-gray sky had been stained with the dim darkness of night, dotted with sparse starlight.

"Lan'er, what is your Soul Power Level now?" As she flew through the air, Shui Qinghan seemed to recall something and suddenly asked.

"Teacher, my Soul Power Level is fourteen," Jiang Lan said.

"Fourteen?!" Shui Qinghan was thoroughly shocked.

He had not even begun formal cultivation yet, and he was already more than halfway there.

Still, considering that Jiang Lan's first ring was a Millennium Soul Ring, it was not surprising that it had raised his Soul Power by four levels in one go.

"Lan'er, for the foreseeable future, you must focus your cultivation on consolidating your foundation. Until your Soul Power has completely stabilized, you must not break through again. Otherwise, if your Soul Power becomes too unstable, it will harm your future cultivation. You may even become stuck at a certain realm and find it difficult to advance." Shui Qinghan warned him seriously.

Although Soul Power cultivation did not emphasize foundations as much as certain fantasy worlds did, it was still affected to some extent.

For example, during the era of the Peerless Tang Clan ten thousand years later, Soul Masters of the Sun Moon Empire often relied on pills to cultivate, leaving their Soul Power terribly unstable and their potential extremely low. Some even found it difficult to break through level 95.

"Yes, Teacher!" Jiang Lan nodded obediently.

That was what he had been thinking as well.

After all, he planned to compress his Soul Power and condense a Soul Core. Naturally, he would never do something so self-destructive.

"Good child~" Shui Qinghan stroked Jiang Lan's head again, her gaze filled with affection.

Although consolidating his foundation would waste some time, with Jiang Lan's talent, he would certainly reach level twenty before the age of eight.

Reaching level twenty before eight years old would already break the record for the youngest two-ring Soul Master in the Soul Master world. Excluding the Six-Winged Angel, of course.

One had to know that even a genius with Innate Full Soul Power needed at least two years to cultivate to level twenty and become a two-ring Soul Grandmaster.

After all, even a genius with Innate Full Soul Power could only raise their Soul Power by four to five levels per year at most.