Martial Soul Communication Experiment

"Cooperation?" Lin Xiao repeated the word, his tongue licking his canine teeth.

"Yes." Lu Yuan nodded. "It's not about controlling, it's about communicating."

Lin Xiao looked down at his hands. There were still bits of gravel stuck under his fingernails.

"How do we communicate?" he asked in a muffled voice, "Talk to a ball of Soul Power?"

Lu Yuan didn't answer. He went back into the house, got some scrap paper and charcoal pencils, and spread them out on the stone steps.

Two lines were drawn on the paper. One was a straight line, and next to it was a loose network diagram.

"Your family's Shadow Art," Lu Yuan pointed to the straight line, "Is about Soul Power rising from the dantian, ascending along the meridians, and condensing at the fingertips. Right?"

Lin Xiao hummed in agreement.

"Here's the problem," the charcoal pencil pointed online, "Your Martial Soul Mutation to have shadow affinity. But the Shadow Art's path doesn't leave room for this trait."

He paused.

"It's like a river that originally flowed in only one direction. Now, a branch of the river tries to seep to the side, but the riverbank is made of iron and can't seep out. The water accumulates more and more, either breaching the riverbank or overflowing the banks."

Lin Xiao understood.

"So just now..."

"Just now, the riverbank was about to collapse," Lu Yuan said. "You forcibly forced three streams of Soul Power into one path."

He pointed to the network diagram.

"A new approach. Soul Power is divided into multiple streams, flowing through different subtle meridians—some enhance attack, some integrate with shadow properties, and others are responsible for stabilizing the structure. Like a net, they support and restrain each other."

Lin Xiao stared at the picture.

"But this requires precise control. More importantly, you need to 'understand' your Martial Soul first." Lu Yuan looked at him. "What exactly does it want? If you don't figure that out, this net can't be woven."

Understanding Martial Soul? That's too abstract a term.

Lin Xiao scratched his head.

"I... I'll give it a try."

The next morning, in the open space behind the house.

Lin Xiao sat cross-legged on an old straw mat, the dew still wet. Lu Yuan sat down three steps away from him, the Blue Silver Grass spreading from his palm, its tips shimmering with a luminous green glow.

"Meditate," Lu Yuan said, "Sink your consciousness to the deepest part of your Soul Power and feel the 'existence' of your Martial Soul."

How do you feel?

"Imagine your Soul Power as a lake. There's something at the bottom of the lake. First, sense its movement—restlessness? stillness? or regular undulations?"

Lin Xiao closed his eyes.

The flow of Soul Power was both restless and stagnant. But did it "exist"? It couldn't be felt.

Half an incense stick later, he opened his eyes.

"I don't feel anything." He was a little annoyed.

"Again." Lu Yuan only said two words.

Lin Xiao gritted his teeth and closed his eyes again.

Consciousness probed inch by inch along the Soul Power. Soul Power surged within the meridians, getting stuck at certain points. The vortex of Soul Power in the dantian slowly rotated, its center darkening—the place where shadow qualities converged.

He patiently peered into the shadows.

The moment he made contact, a cold, sharp sense of resistance struck him violently, as if something in the darkness was watching him warily.

Lin Xiao's heart skipped a beat.

He steadied himself and didn't back down. The resistance lingered for a few breaths, then softened into a blurry "gaze."

That's so strange.

He instinctively wanted to use his Soul Power to envelop that dark area. The moment the thought arose, the resistance erupted again, even stronger.

Lin Xiao suddenly opened his eyes, sweat beading on his forehead.

It... won't let me touch it.

Lu Yuan's eyes lit up.

"It's not that you can't touch it, it's that you can't 'control' it." He nodded. "It sensed the hostility. Try a different approach—don't press down, don't control, like reaching out to pet a wary wildcat. Slow down, without aggression."

Lin Xiao licked his dry lips.

Stray cats? In his entire life, every stray cat he'd ever touched either ran away in fright or was grabbed by the scruff of its neck and thrown out.

Disaster.

But he closed his eyes for the third time.

This time, he slowed down the flow of his Soul Power and kept his consciousness extremely low. When he approached the darkness, he simply "stopped" quietly to the side.

The resistance returned, but it was weaker.

Lin Xiao waited patiently. Gradually, he sensed a very subtle "rhythm"—a rhythmic fluctuation of Soul Power. It was somber, aloof, and tinged with impatience.

Like a leopard trapped in a cage, it paced restlessly.

He tried to match the rhythm of his Soul Power to that rhythm.

The moment they touched it, the shadowy figure suddenly shrank back.

The resistance erupted again, fueled by anger. His Soul Power instantly became chaotic, and Lin Xiao let out a muffled groan as blood seeped from the corner of his mouth.

The experiment failed.

The next three days were all failures.

Lin Xiao tried more than ten times, and each time he was repelled when he was close to the darkness. The worst time was when his Soul Power almost exploded in his dantian, but fortunately Lu Yuan used Blue Silver Grass to guide it in time.

On the afternoon of the fourth day, Lin Xiao was discouraged.

He sat on the straw mat, head down, picking at the edge of the mat.

"It's no use." The voice was hoarse. "We can't communicate with it at all. It's just a disobedient mass of Soul Power. All this talk of existence and rhythm is nonsense."

Lu Yuan was organizing his notes. The scrap paper was covered with writing and simple diagrams.

"Look," he said, handing her the paper, "Each time you approach, the intensity of its reaction, its duration, and the subsequent fluctuations in its Soul Power all show subtle differences. This isn't nonsense; there's a pattern to it."

Lin Xiao glanced at it. He couldn't understand it.

"So what?" he said, scratching his head in frustration. "I still got bounced off."

"Because you always want to 'fit in' it," Lu Yuan said. "It's like you always want to become friends with a stranger immediately. Maybe what it needs isn't friends, but neighbors. Maintaining distance, but knowing each other's presence."

Lin Xiao remained silent.

He was exhausted. His head ached as if it had been hit by a hammer. Although his right arm had healed, every time his Soul Power went out of control, it aggravated his tendons and veins, making his entire arm sore, swollen, and numb.

"That's enough for today." He stood up. "I'm going for a walk."

Lu Yuan glanced at him but didn't stop him.

Lin Xiao walked along the path behind the house toward the edge of the woods. The sky was overcast, with thick clouds pressing down on the valley. He reached the stream, squatted down, scooped up a handful of water, and splashed it on his face.

The coolness sent a shiver down my spine.

His face was reflected in the water. His hair was disheveled, his eyes were bloodshot, and the old claw mark on his left cheek was particularly clear in the gloomy light.

He stared at the water and suddenly remembered his first Martial Soul Awakening when he was a child.

Inside the family ancestral hall, the elders formed a circle. He placed his hand on the crystal ball, which emitted a dazzling, eerie light. Exclamations arose from all sides; everyone said that the family had produced a genius unlike any other in a century.

He was so proud of himself back then.

But what about now?

Hunted by his family, he hid like a stray dog. His Soul Power control was a mess, and he couldn't even manage his own Martial Soul.

A genius? What a joke.

He clenched his fists so tightly that his nails dug into his palms.

I'm not reconciled.

I'm really not willing to accept this.

When he returned to the cabin, it was almost dark. Lu Yuan lit an oil lamp inside and frowned as he looked at a newly drawn picture.

Lin Xiao pushed open the door and came in, bringing in a damp atmosphere.

It's going to rain.

"I want to try again," he said calmly.

Lu Yuan looked up at him.

Have you thought it through?

"Hmm." Lin Xiao walked to the straw mat and sat down cross-legged. "This time, I won't conform to it, nor will I control it. I'll just... watch."

Lu Yuan didn't ask any more questions and sat down opposite him. The Blue Silver Grass spread out, and the halo at the tips of the grass was softer than before, like a thin veil, gently enveloping Lin Xiao.

This is the auxiliary method that Lu Yuan devised—using the gentle plant Soul Power fluctuations of Blue Silver Grass to form a stable "field" to help Lin Xiao stabilize the overall framework of his Soul Power.

Lin Xiao closed his eyes.

He didn't immediately sink into the depths of his Soul Power, but first adjusted his breathing. Each breath was slow. His body relaxed, and his muscles loosened inch by inch.

Then, consciousness slowly sank.

The surface of the Soul Power Lake was calm. The darkness beneath remained, and he could sense a somber rhythm and a faint sense of vigilance.

This time he didn't approach.

He stopped on the "lake" and quietly "watched".

Look at the undulations in that shadowy place, observe the subtle changes in its rhythm, watch its occasional restlessness, and witness its long periods of silence.

After an unknown amount of time, he suddenly realized that the darkness was not pure "blackness".

At the level of Soul Power perception, it has a very faint "color". It is not the color seen by the eyes, but a feeling - a deep, dark purple with a metallic coldness, with silvery glints at the edges, like the reflection of a beast's eye occasionally glimpsed in the forest at night.

Aloof, unruly, and deeply weary.

Lin Xiao was stunned.

The feeling was so real, so real, that it sent a shiver down his spine.

Subconsciously, he stopped his Soul Power from conforming to the color and instead gently and tentatively "touched" the edge of that color.

It was like gently touching the fur of a sleeping wild beast with your finger.

A sudden tremor ran through the darkness.

But this time there was no resistance, no rage. It seemed startled, but more than that, there was... surprise?

Lin Xiao held his breath, maintaining the extremely light touch of his Soul Power rhythm, without going any further.

The darkness fell silent.

A moment later, it actually began to actively adjust its rhythm, gradually approaching Lin Xiao's Soul Power rhythm. It wasn't about matching, but rather a kind of "response"—you touch, I respond; you retreat a little, I retreat a little.

Like two wild animals meeting for the first time, they cautiously probed each other.

In that instant, the stubborn stagnation within Lin Xiao's body suddenly loosened.

Like a river frozen for an entire winter, the first faint, almost inaudible cracking sound came from deep within the ice.

Click.

It's very light, but undeniably real.

Lin Xiao suddenly opened his eyes.

The light from the oil lamp jumped into his pupils, and he was momentarily disoriented. His amber-colored vertical pupils contracted in the light, but deep within his eyes, a cluster of unprecedented, bright light shone.

He looked at Lu Yuan, his lips moved, and his throat went dry.

"I..." His voice was hoarse, each word seemingly squeezed out with difficulty from his chest, "... I think I felt it."