Of course, improving this meditation method until it matched the undiminished effects of the Mysterious Heaven Skill, or even surpassed the original, was absolutely not something Ye Qing could accomplish overnight.
Much less on his very first attempt at cultivating.
These ideas had merely surfaced in his mind while he practiced this meditation method for the first time.
Cultivation methods could be improved, but he could not rush the process.
By the time Ye Qing finished his first cultivation session, the sky had gone completely dark.
Even after cultivating all day, Ye Qing did not feel tired. Instead, he felt as though he had slept, refreshed and clearheaded. Aside from a little stiffness from sitting still for so long, he felt no discomfort.
Still, the cultivation process was undoubtedly dull.
He could not move around while cultivating, or he would easily slip out of his meditative state.
Once his thoughts became scattered, his ability to sense the primordial energy of heaven and earth would suffer considerably, naturally slowing his cultivation. Nor did the process pass like sleep, over in a blink.
While cultivating, Soul Masters could clearly feel time passing. In other words, however long they cultivated was exactly how long they had to sit there doing nothing.
For those who could not settle their minds, even cultivating for two hours a day was already asking a lot.
There were reasons for the enormous differences in cultivation speed between Soul Masters, and they laid bare the bloody gulf between geniuses and weaklings. After awakening his martial soul, Huo Yuhao had cultivated almost desperately, yet only reached rank ten when he was nearly twelve.
The lazy Wang Dong fished for three days and dried her nets for two, yet she could still advance from innate full soul power to rank twenty-one.
Meanwhile, geniuses like Dai Huabin and Ning Tian, who were talented, hardworking, and well supplied with resources, could even advance straight to Soul Elder.
That gap would only grow wider as time went on.
"But what does that have to do with me? It's not like I'm some ordinary person with no backing." Ye Qing laughed lightly, stood up, and stretched his stiff body.
Ye Qing felt comfortable enough, but Ye Feng, who had been observing him in secret, was rather stunned. After watching for an entire day, he made a simple calculation based on how long and how efficiently Ye Qing absorbed soul power. His final conclusion was...
"My grandson Ye Qing has the makings of an Ultimate Douluo!"
After confirming that Ye Qing's talent had not disappointed him in the slightest, Ye Feng embarked on a feeding regimen that could only be described as deranged.
Mountain delicacies on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.
Seafood on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.
And every dish used the finest cuts from soul beasts. These premium ingredients, nourished by soul power, could greatly improve a Soul Master's capabilities across the board.
They strengthened and toughened the body and meridians, enriched blood and vital energy, and accelerated cultivation. Most importantly, they tasted good, too.
On Sundays, he would even bring out a piece of whale rubber for Ye Qing to wolf down.
After eating so many ingredients worth fortunes in gold, Ye Qing naturally began all sorts of utterly inhuman training. Ye Feng designed every exercise to exacting standards.
First came the ever-popular running.
As a Titled Douluo, Ye Feng naturally would not be an idiot like that moron Zhou Yi. Ye Qing's running course was a gravity field created by an earth-attribute Soul Master.
Running under directly increased gravity was naturally far more effective than strapping iron weights to his body. It also avoided deforming his growing body through uneven weight distribution.
Next came swimming.
Yes, swimming...
At first, he only swam a hundred or two hundred meters at a time. Later, Ye Feng simply had Ye Qing swim around Sea God Lake, going as far as he could. Only when his entire body had gone limp would Ye Feng fish him out.
For now, those were the only two forms of physical conditioning. Next came combat training.
Since he had yet to obtain a soul ring and was still too young, Ye Feng did not find him any opponents. He simply had him strike targets to train the force of his punches and kicks, and used some soul tools to train his reflexes.
As for a mimicry training ground, one was already available.
As Mu En's disciple, Ye Qing received direct approval to cultivate in the Sea God Pavilion. Although he could not enter the various cultivation chambers beneath the Golden Tree, he was given a small room on an upper floor of the Sea God Pavilion.
What mimicry training ground could possibly suit Ye Qing better than the inside of the Golden Tree?
Ye Qing spent a full three months living this way: so busy his feet barely touched the ground, training himself to exhaustion before returning to the Sea God Pavilion to cultivate, then repeating the cycle once he recovered his energy the next day.
Over those three months, Ye Qing ate so many heavenly treasures that he nearly wanted to puke. He ate seven or eight pieces of whale rubber alone, while other top-grade ingredients arrived one after another.
With so much nourishing food going into his stomach, he was bound to suffer for it.
There was no way around that.
When ordinary people ate too much without exercising, they gained fat. When Soul Masters ate too much without digesting it properly, the medicinal potency and nutrients did not turn into fat, but clogged their meridians instead.
Three months later.
Ye Qing, who had undergone what could only be called a complete transformation, finally got a chance to rest.
He no longer looked anything like a six-year-old baby. He stood 1.2 meters tall, with clearly defined muscles and healthy wheat-colored skin, the very image of a tiger cub beginning to reveal its ferocity.
Bei Bei should originally have been taller than him, since Bei Bei had already obtained a soul ring.
Yet after three months, Ye Qing was more than half a head taller than Bei Bei instead.
No wonder people said those on the Douluo Continent developed quickly. After Ye Qing ate so many good things and spent three months digesting them through intense training, people would have believed him if he claimed to be ten or so.
Of course, his physical strength and the resilience of his meridians had also improved tremendously.
All those good things had not gone to waste.
Ye Feng's reason for investing so heavily was simple: he wanted Ye Qing to be able to absorb a first soul ring of a greater age.
"Very good, my dear grandson. After these three months of training, your body is strong enough to absorb a seven- or eight-hundred-year soul ring." After checking his physical strength, Ye Feng spoke with great satisfaction.
Reaching this level was essentially the upper limit.
After all, he had not grown older, and his martial soul had not developed either. No matter how much more he trained, any further improvement would be minimal.
Just as people were limited by their genes and could never grow more than ten meters tall, physical strength was similarly constrained by age and martial soul.
At six years old, strengthening his body enough to absorb a seven- or eight-hundred-year soul ring was already his limit.
It was not impossible to push it further, but doing so would cost more than it was worth.
The heavenly treasures and time required would increase exponentially, without yielding much additional benefit.
Just as grinding soil with your hands could, at most, reduce it to dust rather than make it vanish completely, improving physical strength followed the same principle.
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