Inherited Memories
At the moment of his Martial Soul Awakening, knowledge of his Martial Soul had suddenly appeared in his mind. His pagoda came with inherited memories.
No one had told him about it, nor had he read it in a book. It was more as though something had always been sealed deep within his sea of consciousness, and his awakening had torn a gap in that seal, sending knowledge flooding into his mind all at once. The memories were neither complete nor organized. They floated in scattered fragments, like an old ship sunk to the bottom of the water, overturned by the waves and broken into countless pieces, yet every piece was perfectly clear.
Only after moving into the quiet room had Ning Buhui slowly begun to piece those fragments together.
At night, he sat cross-legged on his bed and closed his eyes, letting his consciousness sink deep within. The first thing to surface was the name he already knew-the Nine Hell Soul-Suppressing Pagoda. The name had been imprinted in his mind on the day of his awakening, as though carved into his bones. It was there without his having to think about it. But why was it called "Nine Hell," and why "Soul-Suppressing"? Only now was he gradually making out the shape of the shadow trailing behind those words.
The pagoda had nine floors. But those floors were not merely nine tiers of eaves; each was a hell, a realm unto itself. With every floor he ascended, its power grew stronger. Two yin-yang fish adorned the outer walls: the white fish governed yang, and the black fish governed yin. The yang fish provided support, while the yin fish controlled. That was right. Though he did not have Twin Martial Souls, his Nine Hell Soul-Suppressing Pagoda could both support and control. Each Soul Ring would produce two Soul Skills, one yin and one yang, one for support and one for control. The yang fish had inherited the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Pagoda's ability to provide support and amplification, while the yin fish possessed the pagoda's own innate ability-to suppress all things.
The Nine Hell Soul-Suppressing Pagoda lived up to its name. It had originally been in a tomb, suppressing a great terror. Now it had transmigrated with him to this world, and he did not know whether that was good or bad.
Things had come to this, and there was no use dwelling on them. As for why Hu Liena's charm had struck him like it had hit a wall and had no effect, that was because, from the day his Martial Soul awakened, it had formed an illusory image of the pagoda in his sea of consciousness, where it had guarded his spirit ever since. Nine Hell Soul Suppression: if it could not protect his own spirit, how could it suppress all things in this world? To suppress spirits, it first had to suppress his own. This passive defense stood guard outside his sea of consciousness like a silent layer of armor, allowing him to disregard any mental attack.
Ning Buhui folded his hands behind his head. He thought that from now on, whenever he faced an opponent skilled in charms or mental attacks, he would have an innate advantage. But it was not entirely invincible. The inherited memories said that against beings above level 100-the so-called gods of this world-this spiritual defense would lose some of its effectiveness. The higher the opponent's level, the weaker the defense. That was because gods had transformed into another species and could no longer be called human.
Still, there was no need to worry too much. As his strength grew, every Soul Ring he obtained would unlock a restriction on one floor of the pagoda, and his spiritual defense would grow several times stronger as well.
That was the second part of the inherited memories. The pagoda was more than a tool Martial Soul; it was like a small world compressed to its very limit. It had nine floors, each concealing a unique grotto-heaven and blessed land. The higher the floor, the denser the Soul Power, and the first floor had quietly opened when his Martial Soul awakened. If he knocked on its gate with Soul Power, he could enter and cultivate at three times the speed he would outside.
Three times did not sound like much, but as the days and months accumulated, it would make the difference between heaven and earth-not to mention that this was only the first floor. When Ning Buhui had read the original work in his previous life, what he had coveted most were the cultivation holy lands reserved for the protagonist's group. The Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well, Sea God Island, the Qiankun Asking Love Valley-each was an advantage built on opportunities found elsewhere. But his pagoda had hidden a treasured land inside his own body. He did not need to cross mountains and rivers or fight others for it; he only needed to cultivate in peace. Given enough time, it would be his most dependable trump card.
Of course, the pagoda itself could also store things, though that was already the most unremarkable function it possessed.
He did not rush to enter the pagoda and test its effects, because the inherited memories had one more crucial part: an inherited cultivation method.
The third part of the inherited memories was a Heart Separation Control method.
The method was called Nine Orifices Heart Control, and it had seven stages: the Three-Aperture Control Heart, Four-Aperture Constant Heart, Five-Aperture Scattered Heart, Six-Aperture Wishful Heart, Seven-Aperture Exquisite Heart, Eight-Aperture Spirit-Nurturing Heart, and, at the peak, the Nine Aperture Glazed Heart. It achieved the same marvelous effect as the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect's Heart Separation Control, but it was stronger and more complete than what Ning Buhui had read about in the book in his previous life. It was also better suited to his peculiar "one pagoda, two uses" Martial Soul.
Nine Orifices Heart Control was a secret technique for mental control. Simply put, it let him divide his attention and mental power, precisely assigning different Soul Skills to different people and resolving the flaw of his Martial Soul's explosive Soul Power consumption.
The Three-Aperture Control Heart, the first stage, allowed him to control three sets of Soul Skills at once and apply them to three targets. Each target could receive a different enhancement or control effect. In the original work, Ning Rongrong had been at this level when she first entered Shrek Academy, able to steadily support only three people.
The Four-Aperture Constant Heart, the second stage, allowed him to control four sets of Soul Skills at once and apply them to four targets, maintaining their effects steadily for a long time.
The Five-Aperture Scattered Heart, the third stage, allowed him to control five sets of Soul Skills at once and apply them to five targets. His mental power could spread further, letting him switch targets flexibly on the battlefield and add or remove them midway.
The Six-Aperture Wishful Heart, the fourth stage, allowed him to control six sets of Soul Skills at once and apply them to six targets. He could switch at will with almost no delay, changing the types of enhancements given to different teammates in a split second on the battlefield.
The Seven-Aperture Exquisite Heart, the fifth stage, allowed him to control seven sets of Soul Skills at once and apply them to seven targets. His mental power was highly divided, yet each part remained focused, allowing him to provide precise support to several powerful fighters at once. It was the highest realm of the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect and the realm its sect master, Ning Fengzhi, had reached.
The Eight-Aperture Spirit-Nurturing Heart, the sixth stage, marked the beginning of a qualitative transformation. It allowed him to control ten sets of Soul Skills at once and apply them to ten targets, while greatly increasing his mental power.
At the seventh stage, the Nine Aperture Glazed Heart, his mental power would have transformed into divine sense. He could control eighteen sets of Soul Skills at once and apply them across the entire battlefield. It was also a realm one could only possibly reach after becoming a Titled Douluo.
This method would be what he relied on in the future. Otherwise, while his nine rings and eighteen skills might seem powerful, the Soul Power consumption alone would give him a bitter cup to drink.
Ning Buhui gathered his thoughts. He was still a rookie who had only just awakened. Though he had level-ten Innate Soul Power, he did not have a single Soul Ring yet, and the pagoda's first floor had only just opened. He remembered a discussion in a fanfic he had read in his previous life, where someone had said Heart Separation Control was one of the divine skills ordinary people found hardest to master, because there were no shortcuts. One could only grind away at it day after day. But he, Ning Buhui, came from an archaeology background. Patience was his stock-in-trade. Digging earth, picking away mud, cleaning out patterns-a pottery shard the size of a fingernail could keep him lying on the ground brushing it for a whole day. He actually found practicing Heart Separation Control more interesting than cultivating Soul Power.
Beyond that, the rest of the knowledge in the inherited memories was rather fragmentary. Some concerned the pagoda's own growth: with every Soul Ring it gained, a deeper floor would open. Its spiritual defense would grow correspondingly stronger, and the concentration of Soul Power inside it would also increase with each floor.
Other fragments concerned the benefits the pagoda gave him. It could strengthen his physique, allowing him to absorb Soul Rings of a greater age. From the moment of his Martial Soul Awakening, Ning Buhui's physique had already been quietly strengthened, putting it about twenty percent above that of Soul Masters at the same rank. As his Soul Power Level rose, the improvement to his physique could grow further; each floor he unlocked would strengthen it by another twenty percent. With Whale Rubber to supplement it, he believed his Soul Ring Configuration would shock every Soul Master on the continent.
Deeper still, many memories remained blurred, as though veiled by an exceptionally thick fog, with only words such as "yin and yang" and "suppression and sealing" faintly showing through. Those would probably have to wait until he obtained more Soul Rings before they could be unlocked one by one.
After sorting through everything, Ning Buhui murmured under his breath:
"Nine Hell Soul-Suppressing Pagoda."
Ning Buhui summoned his Martial Soul. The black-and-white pagoda floated quietly above his palm, the two entwined yin-yang fish moving along its body. The gate on the first floor was illusory, like a curtain formed from intersecting streams of black and white Qi. He tried channeling Soul Power into it, and at its touch, the curtain gently parted to either side. Ning Buhui sent his consciousness inward, and his whole body entered a gray, misty space.
The space was not particularly large, roughly the size of a soccer field. Above him was a haze of undivided chaos, and beneath his feet was a translucent stone floor, cool to the touch. There were no clearly defined walls around him; beyond his field of vision lay only chaotic mist. Standing there, he felt Soul Power slowly flowing toward him from every direction, considerably denser than outside. He tried taking in a few breaths of it, and every limb and bone seemed to loosen, as though he had soaked in a warm bath. It was so comfortable he wanted to moan.
Ning Buhui settled cross-legged and began cultivating. Though he had started at a high level and had the Soul Suppressing Pagoda to help him, when he thought of the heaven-defying opportunities of God King Tang and the protagonist's group, he knew he still could not afford to slack off.