Chen Ping's words truly came from the heart. After all, a support didn't have all that much to do in a team fight.
Using their support skills at the right moment and not getting themselves killed before they could use them was already enough for the rest of the team.
But even with requirements that simple, how many supports could actually meet them?
Knowing to run when danger struck, never stirring up extra trouble because they knew they couldn't beat anyone, and, when absolutely necessary, jumping out to draw fire and buy the team's heavy hitter time to recover.
What was that? That was the perfect support!
As the saying went, those skilled in warfare had no dazzling feats to their name. A support whose presence went unnoticed was a good support.
If Tang Xiaolong... Wang Xiaolong could really master Ghost Shadow Perplexing Track.
He couldn't promise anything else, but as long as his future teammates weren't too utterly inhuman, the enemy support would have been sent flying by his own team's agility-type Soul Master long before the opposing agility-type Soul Master could catch and kill him.
Ghost Shadow Perplexing Track might be called a technique, but on the Douluo Continent, it was a bona fide Self-Created Soul Skill!
Tang San had started out with nothing but Blue Silver Grass whose bloodline hadn't awakened. Aside from a cultivation speed matching that of a top-tier Martial Soul, every other attribute was abysmal. How had he managed to thrash Soul Masters at his own level?
Wasn't it all thanks to his arsenal of Tang Sect Secret Arts?
Other Soul Masters really only had three skills when they had three rings. Tang San had at least three Soul Skills, plus the Eight Spider Lances, Mysterious Jade Hand, Controlling Crane Capturing Dragon, Ghost Shadow Perplexing Track, Hidden Weapons: One Hundred Solutions, the Tang Sect Poison Manual, and a whole long string of other usable "Self-Created Soul Skills."
Three skills against eight or nine-how were they supposed to fight that?
But this also indirectly showed just how useless the Blue Silver Grass Martial Soul was in the Control System role.
Even with so many more Soul Skills than other Soul Masters at his level, Tang San had still realized how feeble the Blue Silver Grass Martial Soul was once he began facing opponents above level thirty-five in Soul Fighting.
It was only because immortal herbs had strengthened his Martial Soul at level forty, followed by its direct evolution into the Blue Silver King at level fifty, that he had skipped the period when the Blue Silver Grass Martial Soul was at its weakest.
Otherwise, Tang San might even have been utterly crushed by opponents at his own level.
There was no denying that the middle-aged man was tempted. He had worked as a mercenary in the Soul Beast Forest before, and he knew just how sought-after a dependable support was.
After a round of Soul Hunting, the seasoned support on a team often earned more than anyone except the captain. Nobody dared say they would never need that support's help.
Ghost Shadow Perplexing Track plus Blue Silver Grass support-this plan really did seem quite enticing.
Especially when Soul Hunting in the wild, percentage-based buffs weren't actually as important as they were in Soul Fighting.
An extra twenty or thirty percent in damage or speed generally wouldn't change the overall situation.
But if something unexpected really happened, a support who could heal someone back up was practically a parent granting them a second life.
The middle-aged man soon realized there was another, most crucial question: which Soul Beast's Soul Ring did a Blue Silver Grass Martial Soul need to absorb to become a support type?
For over ten thousand years, the Tang Sect could arguably be called the sect with the deepest understanding of the Blue Silver Grass Martial Soul, yet it had never considered switching Blue Silver Grass out of the Control System.
All its research had focused on increasing the Innate Soul Power of Soul Masters with the Blue Silver Grass Martial Soul and replicating Tang San's path of growth.
That was precisely why Wang Xiaolong's Innate Soul Power was so much higher than that of Blue Silver Grass Soul Masters ten thousand years ago-a full two and a half levels.
This was one of the Tang Sect's research achievements: continually having Blue Silver Grass Soul Masters with Innate Soul Power marry other Soul Masters with Soul Power rather than ordinary people.
Then it spent enormous sums purchasing pills from the Sun Moon Empire that forcibly squeezed out their potential to raise their Soul Power Level, providing them free of charge to Tang Sect Soul Masters who had inherited the Blue Silver Grass Martial Soul and possessed Innate Soul Power.
It raised the cultivation levels of those Soul Masters with the Blue Silver Grass Martial Soul, repeating the cycle over and over.
Finally, after more than ten thousand years of sustained effort, the Tang Sect could now reliably produce sect leaders with the Blue Silver Grass Martial Soul who were three-ring Soul Elders, or even Four-Ring Soul Ancestors.
As for this extravagant project devouring the wealth the sect had accumulated over all those years, generation after generation, until the tree fell and the monkeys scattered, leaving the entire Tang Sect dispersed...
Don't go poking your nose into that. Just look at today's Blue Silver Grass Soul Masters compared with those ten thousand years ago, who either had no Innate Soul Power or only one level of it. Wasn't that far more than a tiny improvement?
Seeing the middle-aged man's conflicted expression, Chen Ping immediately understood what was troubling him and said, "You can rest assured when it comes to recommendations for which Soul Beasts to hunt."
"I'm not someone who takes your money and does nothing. One Soul Master career plan, complete with Soul Hunting recommendations-I guarantee your child will successfully switch paths and become a support-type Soul Master."
"As for hunting Soul Beasts, taking the difficulty into account, what I previously recommended for your child was the Gem Crystal Bug. They're common, easy to catch, and barely aggressive at all. Just find a Soul Master with a blunt-weapon Martial Soul to help give it a few whacks."
"Normally, this kind of Soul Beast produces Soul Rings with amplification effects for gem-type support Soul Masters, or Soul Skills resembling mirror defenses for defense-type Soul Masters."
"But if a Soul Beast with the Blue Silver Grass Martial Soul absorbs a Gem Crystal Bug, it will most likely produce the Vitality Refraction Soul Skill directly."
"For subsequent Soul Beast hunts, you only need to choose Soul Beasts with abundant vitality. As long as the effect of the first Soul Skill, Vitality Refraction, keeps getting stronger, there's no need to worry about being dropped by your teammates."
"R-really?"
The middle-aged man's eyes lit up. On the Douluo Continent, knowledge of how different Martial Souls paired with different Soul Beasts was a family legacy, and extraordinarily precious.
Take the White Tiger Duke's lineage and its same old four skills, mocked for remaining unchanged for ten thousand years: White Tiger Protective Barrier, White Tiger Fierce Light Wave, White Tiger Vajra Transformation, and White Tiger Demon God Transformation.
Which Soul Beast had to be hunted to reliably produce each of those four Soul Skills? People had to test that themselves!
An ordinary Soul Master Academy teacher could only infer whether a Soul Beast suited a Soul Master based on the types of the Martial Soul and Soul Beast. Whether the resulting Soul Skill actually suited them still came down to luck.
He had originally thought Chen Ping's consultation fee was outrageously expensive, and that he had simply taken advantage of his child's youth and his wife's lack of opinions of her own to swindle several Gold Soul Coins out of their family.
But if Chen Ping was telling the truth, those few Gold Soul Coins would have been money exceptionally well spent!
Many things could sit there worthless if they never reached someone they suited. But once they found the right person, they became treasures that even a thousand pieces of gold couldn't buy.
Perhaps the family behind Chen Ping had a record stating that a Blue Silver Grass Soul Master could obtain the Vitality Refraction Soul Skill after absorbing a Gem Crystal Bug's Soul Ring, and it had gone unused for hundreds of years.
But once the right person really came along, it would be enough to change one person's fate, or even that of an entire family.
For a moment, the middle-aged man even looked a little more reserved, and he recalled the eye-catching advertising slogan on Chen Ping's bamboo basket.
[For sale: compiled Soul Skill information packages covering generations of top Shrek students, and training plans for top Shrek students. Let your child win at the starting line.]
Before you continue