A first soul ring that broke the limit

The next morning, Sword Douluo arrived at Lin Ye's door bright and early, hurried him through breakfast, and dragged him off to the Training Ground.

"Boy, show me that Purple Lightning Sword Technique you used yesterday again."

Sword Douluo Chen Xin stood in the middle of the Training Ground with his arms folded. His silver hair fluttered in the morning breeze, lending him the ethereal grace of an immortal.

"Of course, Master Sword. You can just call me Ye."

With that, Lin Ye looked at the training dummy ahead and raised his right hand. His White Paper Martial Soul appeared.

"Swift Shadow Like a Sword!"

A Lightning Stiletto shot through the air, and his body turned into purple lightning, teleporting ten meters away.

When he reappeared, a purple longsword formed in his hand. Tiny arcs of electricity danced along its edge as he thrust straight at the dummy's brow.

"Beautiful!"

Ning Rongrong sat on a stone bench beside the grounds. Watching Lin Ye perform his sword technique again, she clapped and cheered, her pink skirt swaying gently with her swinging legs.

A sharp gleam flashed through Sword Douluo's eyes.

"Interesting. This isn't merely elemental control, but a technique combining swordsmanship, lightning, and spatial properties. How did you come up with it?"

Lin Ye lowered his sword and stood straight. "I just thought about moving quickly to attack, and manifested it."

"Really? Through imagination alone?"

Sword Douluo suddenly burst out laughing. "Good, good, good! Come, try this!"

With a flick of Sword Douluo's wrist, the Seven Kill Sword left its sheath in an instant, and the air throughout the Training Ground seemed to freeze.

He used no soul power, only a plain, unadorned thrust, attacking Lin Ye while deliberately avoiding his vital points.

Lin Ye's pupils contracted slightly. The strike looked simple, yet it truly embodied a return to the pure and unadorned.

"How much did you understand?"

"Seventy percent," Lin Ye answered honestly.

Sword Douluo nodded in satisfaction. "Not bad. Now manifest what I just performed."

A moment later, Lin Ye reproduced the exact same move, though its power and sword intent fell considerably short.

"As I thought, your martial soul is very unusual. Keep watching. The next move..."

Two hours later, Ning Rongrong was so bored that she had started counting ants on the ground.

She looked up at Lin Ye, who was sweating like rain in the training grounds, and grumbled, "Grandpa Sword, it's time for a break!"

"Hahaha! Is our little princess feeling sorry for him?"

Sword Douluo withdrew his martial soul. "That will do for today. I'm very pleased with your performance, but you aren't using a real sword, after all, so you cannot grasp the true essence of the sword. You therefore need to learn to use a real one. Your sword training begins tomorrow."

Lin Ye wiped the sweat from his forehead. "All right, Master. But I'd like to obtain my first soul ring first."

Sword Douluo frowned. "Now? You've only just learned to control your martial soul. There's no need to rush into..."

"I think I'm ready, and I want a soul ring from a soul beast over five hundred years old," Lin Ye said bluntly.

Silence suddenly fell. Sword Douluo's brows knitted tightly.

"Nonsense! The limit for a first soul ring is 423 years. That is universally accepted in the soul master world—"

"Who made that rule?" Lin Ye countered.

"What?"

"Who decided on this limit of 423 years?" Lin Ye's brown eyes met Sword Douluo's directly.

Sword Douluo froze for a moment. "It's... a theory compiled by Grandmaster Yu Xiaogang. Although he's only a Soul Grandmaster..."

In truth, Sword Douluo had his own doubts about the theory. After all, it had been proposed by a Soul Grandmaster.

Yet over all these years, among the many people he had seen in the soul master world, almost no one's first soul ring had exceeded 423 years.

The corners of Lin Ye's lips rose slightly. "Oh? So he isn't a Titled Douluo."

Ning Rongrong blinked her large eyes. "Grandpa Sword, is that Grandmaster really impressive?"

"He is quite knowledgeable..."

"But over all these years, I've hardly ever seen anyone on the Douluo Continent exceed that age limit," Sword Douluo said.

Lin Ye stepped forward. "Master, just because you haven't seen it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It only means those people couldn't do it."

"Who says a first soul ring can't be five hundred years old? Six hundred? Or even seven or eight hundred?"

"You!"

Sword Douluo stared at Lin Ye with wide eyes. Seeing the unwavering resolve in his gaze, he suddenly laughed. "Good! Very good! Today, I'll see just how many rules you can break!"

Deep in the Glazed Forest, Sword Douluo raised his hand and pinned an eight-hundred-year-old Spotted Deer to the ground with a streak of sword energy.

"Ye, I'll ask one last time. Are you sure you want this one?"

Lin Ye nodded, raised his purple longsword, and ended the Spotted Deer's life with a clean, decisive stroke.

A deep-yellow soul ring slowly rose, radiating powerful fluctuations of energy.

Ning Rongrong nervously clutched the hem of Lin Ye's clothes. "Lin Ye... isn't this too dangerous?"

"Trust me."

Lin Ye looked at her and smiled, then sat down cross-legged.

Drawn by his soul power, the soul ring slowly descended and enveloped him.

Sword Douluo tightened his grip on the Seven Kill Sword and watched intently, terrified that something might happen to Lin Ye.

But to his astonishment, the soul ring's energy, which should have been violent, flowed into Lin Ye's body like a gentle stream, without the slightest resistance!

Fifteen minutes later, Lin Ye slowly opened his eyes. The soul power radiating around him had clearly grown stronger.

"Rank thirteen?!"

Sword Douluo sucked in a breath of cold air.

He actually succeeded? Lin Ye really broke that theory!

At the sight, Ning Rongrong immediately threw herself at him with a cheer. "Lin Ye, that's amazing! What soul skill did you get?"

Lin Ye felt the soul power flowing within him, then smiled faintly. "Lingxu: Unending Inspiration."

"Unending Inspiration? What does that mean?" Little Ning Rongrong didn't quite understand.

Lin Ye explained, "Exactly what it sounds like. Inspiration that never stops while painting."

"I named it that because this soul skill automatically restores my soul power. It also has two other effects: twenty percent greater recovery efficiency and five percent lower soul power consumption. These effects will grow stronger as my rank increases."

"That sounds amazing!" Although Ning Rongrong didn't quite understand, the stunned expression on Grandpa Sword's face told her it was anything but ordinary.

Sword Douluo's hand trembled slightly. "This is simply..."

A self-support soul skill—that was how he classified Lin Ye's ability.

Automatically restoring soul power is nothing special, just an ordinary support skill for endurance. But you're telling me its effects improve as your rank rises? That makes it rather terrifying.

This meant Lin Ye would possess terrifying endurance in prolonged battles, and the higher his rank, the longer he could keep fighting.

Combined with his ability to manifest his imagination into attacks, it was practically perfect!

"Ye, is your martial soul really the White Paper Martial Soul?"

Lin Ye blinked. "Yes."

Is it a mutated martial soul? But this mutation is far too extreme.

Could it be...?

A possibility occurred to Sword Douluo, leaving him utterly astonished.

Lin Ye's martial soul might be a top-tier mutated martial soul approaching a god-bestowed martial soul!

No wonder he had rank-ten innate full soul power. This was no ordinary White Paper.

"Grandpa Sword, I'm hungry. Since Lin Ye's all right now, shall we go back and eat?"

Ning Rongrong's words pulled Sword Douluo from his thoughts.

"All right, let's head back. Lin Ye, from now on, you'll train in the mornings. Your afternoons are yours to arrange," Sword Douluo said.

"Yes, Master."

After returning to the sect and having lunch with Ning Rongrong, Lin Ye went back to his room under the pretext of taking an afternoon nap.

He opened his personal system panel and saw that the information on it had indeed changed.

[Name: Lin Ye]

[Age: Six (???)]

[Martial soul: World-Painting Scroll]

[Rank: Thirteen (???)]

[Soul skills: Manifestation (innate ability), Lingxu: Unending Inspiration (800)]

[...]

"Very nice. I didn't expect I could really break that bullshit theory. Heh, this is getting interesting."

Lin Ye believed that the upper limit of a soul ring's age did not depend solely on physical strength. The more important factor was the strength of the soul.

As a transmigrator who had reincarnated through many worlds, his soul had long since grown terrifyingly powerful. That was why absorbing a mere eight-hundred-year soul ring had been so effortless.

"For my next soul ring, I'll go straight for a thousand-year one."

After that, he would increase their ages step by step, choosing whatever made him strongest.

Lin Ye could already imagine the stunned expression on that so-called Grandmaster's face when he saw his soul rings.