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After setting up Yu Feng's training plan, Ye Lan noticed Dugu Yan approaching him. In fact, she pressed her entire body close to his, staring intently at him with her large, emerald-green eyes.
"What do you think you're doing?!" Ye Lan could only feel that Dugu Yan's body was as soft and pliable as if it were boneless.
"Could you perhaps assign me a slightly lighter training task? Idol, you wouldn't really want to see your little fan suffer, would you?!" Dugu Yan cooed, batting her large eyes flirtatiously.
The combination of her overwhelming figure and her incredibly seductive voice was enough to make Ye Lan's bones feel as if they might melt. Resisting Dugu Yan's allure, Ye Lan suppressed his inner turmoil.
He gently patted Dugu Yan's head and comforted her, "Your idol is only doing this for your own good. If you don't suffer now, you'll only get hurt later. You wouldn't want to make your idol worry about you, would you?"
Dugu Yan was so delighted that her eyes instantly curved into happy crescents. She replied, "If my idol would feel heartbroken for me, then I would rather get injured."
Thump!
Ye Lan gave Dugu Yan a light chop on her head.
"Ouch! You see, all men are really just big liars," Dugu Yan said, rubbing the top of her head.
Watching the interaction between Ye Lan and Dugu Yan, Ye Lengleng covered her mouth to hide a subtle smile.
"Stop trying to be cute. Your training assignment for today will be the same as Ao Si Luo's! However, you will need to add extra weight and then begin extreme-speed sprint training!" Ye Lan instructed firmly.
"Captain Ye, why do I need to undergo speed training? Didn't you say I should follow a pure poison path?" Dugu Yan asked, looking puzzled.
"Even if you follow a pure poison path, your close-combat abilities cannot be lacking! What will you do if you encounter an enemy who completely counters your poison-type abilities?"
"Will you just let them completely overwhelm you in close quarters?" Ye Lan questioned.
"Wuwuwu, okay, I understand now," Dugu Yan conceded.
"Furthermore, poison-type Spirit Masters are indeed formidable on the Soul Dueling stage because the battlefield is a fixed area. Unless you happen to encounter a Spirit Master who can neutralize your poison, rendering your toxic mist ineffective, the damage you can inflict when your poison covers the entire field is truly terrifying."
"But the battles in your life will not be limited to just Soul Duels! In the future, out in the wild, what will you do when you encounter a surprise attack and you lack close-combat skills?"
"When you use your spirit abilities to release poison, your opponents won't just stand there foolishly, waiting for the toxic mist to spread and envelop them."
"Therefore, in a wilderness environment, the advantages of a poison-type Spirit Master are not as pronounced."
"Additionally, Dugu Yan, as long as you can increase your speed, even when you face an opponent who tries to keep their distance, you will be able to close in on them rapidly and release your poison at point-blank range."
"It is extremely difficult to evade poison released at such a close distance. After all, not everyone possesses an instant-movement spirit ability like I do."
"To summarize, you, Dugu Yan, must improve your close-quarters combat capabilities, and increasing your speed is the very first step toward achieving that," Ye Lan concluded.
"You truly live up to your reputation, Captain Ye!! I will listen to everything you say," Dugu Yan said, nodding in agreement.
A moment later, a green light flashed from Dugu Yan as the Jade Phosphor Serpent possessed her. After shouldering the heavy stones that Teacher Qin had prepared, she began running toward the far end of the training grounds.
Watching Dugu Yan's retreating figure, Ye Lan shouted after her, "Run with all your might! Don't you dare slack off, your idol is watching you!"
"I would never slack off!"
Encouraged by Ye Lan's words, Dugu Yan seemed to have been injected with a powerful stimulant, and her speed increased by another level.
After Dugu Yan's silhouette had gradually disappeared from view, Ye Lan turned his attention back, only to find that Ye Lengleng had quietly approached and was now standing right beside him.
The two stood in silence, simply watching the members of the Heaven Dou First Team train together.
After a long while, Ye Lan finally spoke. "I'm sorry."
Ye Lengleng gently shook her head. "If it is you, I do not mind."
"Once the flaw of the 'Nine-Heart Begonia' is healed, will you remove your veil for me?" Ye Lan asked.
"You should already know what that signifies," Ye Lengleng replied, her cheeks flushing with a hint of red.
"I will take good care of you," Ye Lan promised without a moment's hesitation.
"Alright," Ye Lengleng said decisively.
From the moment Ye Lan had seen her unparalleled beauty within her memories, in a certain sense, Ye Lengleng's spirit already belonged to him. After reading through all of her memories, he had learned of the silent decision she had made the moment she put on the black veil: only her destined person would be the one to have her remove it.
Recalling the peerless face etched into his mind, Ye Lan began to anticipate the day when Lengleng would finally take off her veil just for him.
On the other side of the field, after countless attempts at condensing the Thunder Dragon Claw, Yu Tianheng was finally able to maintain its form for several seconds without releasing it. At first, he didn't understand the purpose of holding the claw in a condensed state, but he knew that the training task Ye Lan had assigned him certainly had its reasons.
When the training began, Yu Tianheng hadn't yet figured it out. It was only after he succeeded in holding the Thunder Dragon Claw for a few seconds that he finally understood Ye Lan's profound intention. Continuously condensing the 'Thunder Dragon Claw' could perpetually enhance his control over lightning; he realized that his command over the ability had already improved significantly compared to before.
Beyond just improving his control, more importantly, Yu Tianheng understood that condensing the claw was meant to increase the duration of his first spirit ability. During his previous battle with Ye Lan, when Ye Lan had closed the distance between them, he had been absolutely certain that the 'Thunder Dragon Claw' would hit its mark, yet Ye Lan had dodged it in an instant. While not everyone might possess Ye Lan's explosive speed, this incident demonstrated another point: his 'Thunder Dragon Claw' was not a guaranteed hit, even at point-blank range.
If he could maintain the condensed 'Thunder Dragon Claw' for an extended period without releasing it, did that not mean he could fight continuously using the claw itself, instead of just ending the attack by throwing it as he had always done?
After grasping Ye Lan's deeper meaning, Yu Tianheng burst into loud laughter. However, his laughter stopped abruptly not long after it started. The reason was that his spirit power had completely bottomed out, which meant it was time for his physical training to begin.
Yu Tianheng gazed at the eight-meter-tall boulder, his scalp tingling with apprehension. Nevertheless, he raised his fists and began to strike the massive rock with all his might.
Crack!
A jolt of intense pain shot through Yu Tianheng's mind. It was agonizing! Yet despite the overwhelming pain, his fist bones had not actually fractured. Yu Tianheng found it difficult to imagine just how much his fists would hurt by the time he completed the training Ye Lan had set for him. He started to regret the bold words he had spoken to Ye Lan earlier. As his thoughts ran wild for a few seconds from the throbbing pain, he slowly began to recover.
Afterward, Yu Tianheng started to hypnotize himself repeatedly. You are the strongest! You are the strongest!
With his self-hypnosis complete, Yu Tianheng seemed to enter a frenzied state, relentlessly throwing his fists against the giant boulder. For a moment, blood splattered through the air. Streaks of crimson began to appear on the white surface of the giant boulder, and the blue and white uniform Yu Tianheng wore was gradually stained red with his own blood.
After delivering several hundred punches, Yu Tianheng's fists were a complete, bloody mess of torn flesh mixed with visible white fragments of bone. Looking at his horrifically mangled hands, he finally understood why Ye Lan had said Teacher Qin's training was like paradise. It was because he himself was now in hell.
Although his entire body was soaked in cold sweat from the pain in his fists, he knew that a promise made was like water that had been spilled. No matter what, he could not allow Ye Lan to look down on him. Ignoring the torment in his hands, Yu Tianheng began to use his right leg to unleash a barrage of whip kicks against the boulder. On the blood-streaked rock, deeper crimson marks from his kicks began to appear.
After an unknown number of kicks against the giant stone, there was a sudden, sharp cracking sound. The bones in Yu Tianheng's right leg had fractured. With only one good leg, he instantly collapsed to the ground. Sprawled on all fours, Yu Tianheng panted heavily. In just a few moments, the ground beneath him was soaked through with blood and sweat.
From a distance, Ye Lan and Ye Lengleng saw Yu Tianheng fall and immediately went to his side. By then, Yu Tianheng's entire body was covered in blood. Ye Lengleng could hardly bear to look at such a gory scene. Even in his most perilous moments in the past, he had never looked so wretched.
Just as Ye Lengleng was about to release her Nine-Heart Begonia spirit ability, Ye Lan stopped her and said, "Lengleng, try to shrink the healing range to just the two-square-meter area where Yu Tianheng is."
"Also, only use your spirit ability once. Aim to heal him completely in a single attempt. For example, if Yu Tianheng is at seventy percent of his vitality right now, then you should heal him for thirty percent. Don't go over thirty percent; a little less is also fine."
Lying on the ground, Yu Tianheng felt a wave of relief upon sensing that Ye Lengleng and Ye Lan had arrived. Both his fists and his right leg were now completely broken. The pain from the mix of shattered bone and torn flesh was sending shockwave after shockwave to his brain. It was truly excruciating.
Ye Lengleng summoned a white-and-pink begonia into her palm and began to concentrate on locking the healing range to the two-square-meter area around Yu Tianheng's body. The purple light of her third spirit ring flashed just once. Petals of white and pink drifted down around Yu Tianheng. They were somewhat scattered, but as just a few of them floated into his body, his mangled flesh began to heal.
Although the healing effect of the petals was excellent, Ye Lengleng still spoke with an apologetic tone. "I'm sorry, I couldn't do it perfectly." She had noticed that the petals had dispersed over an area of about five square meters, which was still far from what Ye Lan had requested.
"It's alright. To be able to control it to such a small area on your first try is already fantastic! Just focus on improving slowly," Ye Lan comforted her.
"Mm!" Ye Lengleng nodded.
After about a dozen seconds, the petals fully converted into life energy within Yu Tianheng's body. His wounds were not completely healed. Instead, he felt an incredible itchiness at the injury sites. However, Yu Tianheng didn't dare to move, afraid of interrupting Ye Lengleng's treatment.
"Yu Tianheng, give Ye Lengleng some feedback on the effect of that last healing ability."
"If we say the damage you took was one hundred percent, what percentage did Lengleng's spirit ability just heal?" Ye Lan asked.
Yu Tianheng gritted his teeth and replied, "About sixty percent! Hiss! It's so itchy!"
Ye Lan nodded and said to Ye Lengleng, "Remember the feeling you just had. This time, you only need to use two-thirds of the spirit power you used before."
Ye Lengleng's purple spirit ring lit up once again. After several tens of seconds, Yu Tianheng reported the result directly, "It healed about ninety-five percent. It's not as itchy anymore."
Ye Lan nodded again and asked Ye Lengleng, "Do you understand how to train the Nine-Heart Begonia now?"
Ye Lengleng nodded. "Yes, I understand now. I need to keep trying to use my spirit abilities with different amounts of spirit power, and then continuously adjust based on the feedback from the injured person, to eventually achieve the most efficient use of my spirit power."
"Exactly. You are the core of the Heaven Dou First Team, so your primary concern should be how to heal your teammates for extended periods."
"If all of your teammates fall, then our team will have lost. But as long as your spirit power isn't exhausted, Lengleng, the members of the first team will not fall! Therefore, your spirit power consumption is of the utmost importance! Your spirit power can be considered the lifeline of the Heaven Dou First Team."
"Mm!!" Ye Lengleng now understood her role. Although it was difficult to increase her total amount of spirit power, by using Ye Lan's method, she could gradually improve her efficiency. As her spirit power utilization became higher and higher, any future opponents of the Heaven Dou First Team would find themselves facing an undying squadron.
After being fully healed by Ye Lengleng, Yu Tianheng got up and launched a new round of attacks on the boulder. On the other side of the massive stone, the brothers Shi Mo and Shi Mo were continuously accelerating and crashing into it. Time and time again, the two brothers were sent flying back by the impact, but their willpower was no less than Yu Tianheng's. Only after they were smashed to the point of coughing up blood did Ye Lengleng arrive in time to heal their internal injuries.
Up in the sky, even after his wings had broken, Yu Feng continued to fly about erratically. One moment he would plummet toward the ground, the next he would shoot toward the sky, and then he would sway from side to side, floating unstably. Watching Yu Feng's chaotic flight, Ye Lan nodded with satisfaction. As long as Yu Feng kept training like this, his flying abilities would continue to improve, eventually giving him a crushing advantage over other flying-type Spirit Masters. Of course, the Six-Winged Angel martial spirit was an exception; after all, it was a god-level spirit.
Ao Si Luo's training was even more brutal in its own way. Although he didn't seem to have any physical injuries, his pale face had turned the color of pig's liver, a clear sign of extreme oxygen deprivation. Right now, Ao Si Luo just wanted to die. There was absolutely no room in his head for thoughts of senior or junior girls. Besides wanting to die, only two words remained in his mind: Faster! Faster!
Bang!
Ao Si Luo lost consciousness and collided with the giant boulder. Ye Lengleng immediately rushed over to treat him.
Elsewhere, Dugu Yan was also running to the point where her consciousness was fading and she was about to collapse. Just as she was about to fall, Ye Lan managed to catch her with an instantaneous movement.
"Idol! How did I do?" Dugu Yan giggled foolishly, nestled in Ye Lan's arms.
"You did great," Ye Lan affirmed. Dugu Yan then fainted completely.
Several days later, Ye Lan was sitting cross-legged in the woods next to the training grounds. The other members of the Heaven Dou First Team were on the field, undergoing their hellish training, continuously shedding blood and sweat.
Ye Lan wasn't slacking off. A few days prior, Dugu Yan had asked him what he was doing, teasingly wondering if he was just watching his little fan suffer. Ye Lan, amused by her, explained that he was creating his own spirit abilities. After he explained this to the others, they had a moment of realization. According to Ye Lan, the hell training was merely a stage for a Spirit Master's advancement, whereas he himself had long since passed that stage and was at a professional level.
In truth, with his current arsenal of self-created spirit abilities, Ye Lan had more than enough for his needs. For movement, he had Flash Step and Sound Shift. For defense, he had Blue Silver Armor and Blood Armor. For attacks, he had Meteor and Solar Furnace. For enhancement, he had Golden Eyes and the complete form of Blood Armor. It could be said that these self-created abilities covered all aspects, and both their quantity and quality completely surpassed anyone else in the Douluo Continent. Only Tang San, relying on the stolen secret arts of the Tang Sect, could barely keep up in terms of quantity. Other Spirit Masters who could create even one or two original abilities were already famous throughout the world, let alone someone like Ye Lan who had piles of them.
But Ye Lan was still not satisfied with his speed. After his encounters with the mysterious Spirit Saint and Dugu Bo, who was using the power of a Spirit Venerable, he realized that his own shortcomings were neither small nor large. For someone who could see through his Flash Step and Sound Shift, it was possible to seize that momentary flaw to kill him with a single strike. The absolute speed of the mysterious Spirit Saint had allowed him to continuously lock onto Ye Lan's position, constantly closing the distance. Moreover, their spirit power consumption was on a completely different level.
Therefore, Ye Lan wanted to create another type of movement ability, one that could maintain high-speed movement while also allowing for flexible turns, thereby achieving a crushing advantage in absolute speed, rather than the point-to-point teleportation of Flash Step and Sound Shift.
Creating his own spirit abilities was not difficult for Ye Lan, who possessed the knowledge of his previous life. After envisioning the desired effect of the ability, he instantly thought of a concept. The reason supercars and supersonic fighter jets in his past life were so fast was inextricably linked to aerodynamics. Therefore, if he could "break the air" in front of him, his speed could rise to another level.
However, he couldn't equip himself with streamlined devices like airplanes or cars. Even if such a device existed that could increase his speed, it would definitely affect his balance. Besides, it would look far too ugly. Was he supposed to dress up like a supercar?
Ultimately, Ye Lan's solution was to alter the flow of spirit power particles around his body to influence the surrounding airflow, causing the air in front of him to conform to the principles of fluid dynamics when he accelerated.
However, after sitting in meditation for several days, Ye Lan realized just how difficult it was to manipulate spirit power particles outside his body. Operating the 'Radiant Meditation Technique' could attract spirit power particles, but they would only be absorbed into his body. While he could completely control the flow of spirit power within his body, what he wanted was to control the flow outside of it.
As he continued to try, Ye Lan felt that it was an almost impossible task. It was like trying to move an object in front of him with a non-existent third hand. He simply had no organ to control external spirit power, so how could he manipulate the particles? Although these days of practice had not revealed the key to controlling external spirit power particles, he did have some gains: his perception of the spirit power in the outside world had increased. He wasn't sure what this meant, but he knew it was a good thing. After all, the first step to control is perception.
After a long time, having tried for a while with no results, Ye Lan decided to change his approach. Since I can't control the spirit power particles outside my body, what if I directly change the flow of the air molecules themselves?
He began to circulate the spirit power within his body, continuously releasing a low amount of it into the air. In the small forest where he sat, bursts of golden spirit power erupted again and again, constantly disturbing the surrounding air. Even though he was a top-tier expert in spirit power projection and had created two abilities with it—Sound Shift and Solar Furnace—he discovered just how difficult it was to maintain a continuous, low-level release.
The density of spirit power inside his body was far greater than that of the outside world. This caused the spirit power to accelerate uncontrollably the moment it was released, rushing from the high-pressure area of his body to the low-pressure area outside. But Ye Lan felt that this approach should not be a major problem, and he began to train step by step. First, he tried to continuously reduce the total amount of his spirit power release, which was roughly equivalent to adjusting the size of a water valve. As long as the "spirit ability valve" was at the critical point between fully closed and open, then no matter how high the spirit pressure inside his body was, the amount of spirit power that could rush out would not be much.
Additionally, the extreme control over spirit power that Ye Lan had cultivated through the 'Limit Spirit Power Infusion Method' greatly helped him suppress the power bursting from his body. External spirit power was difficult to control, but the power within his body was as easy for him to command as breathing.
After tackling the problem from two angles, he smoothly developed a method for a continuous, low-level release of spirit power. At first, this released power just blasted forward into the air in a single clump. But under Ye Lan's gradual adjustments, the golden spirit power slowly formed an arc-shaped shock front, pushing the air in front of him to the sides.
Thinking he had succeeded in developing his new self-created spirit ability, Ye Lan immediately infused his legs with one hundred and thirty percent of his spirit power and vanished from his spot in a burst of speed. However, the moment he executed the sprint with his new ability, he felt something was wrong.
First, as his speed continuously increased, the air in front of him pressed down on his body with immense force. The principle of his new ability was to use spirit power to impact the air to achieve a "parting the air" effect. However, the air at high speeds was completely different from the air when he was practicing while stationary. Using spirit power to "part the air" while standing still was simple, and the consumption was low. But doing it while sprinting was another matter entirely.
Firstly, the airflow was extremely irregular. Even though Ye Lan had complete control over his spirit power and possessed the 'Eight-Sided Exquisite Heart,' allowing him to use his hyper-precise control to release different proportions of spirit power from various parts of his body to deal with the irregular airflow, doing so occupied five of his "external brains." For a single ability, this used up far too many resources in combat.
But that wasn't even its main drawback. The primary issue was that the spirit power consumption was simply too enormous. The consumption while stationary and the consumption while sprinting were completely different. As his own speed increased, the total amount of spirit power consumed increased dramatically. If the continuous release while stationary had a consumption rate of 1, while sprinting it would rapidly rise from 1 to over 30, and could even reach 100 as his speed grew even faster. In a battle, using this ability would drain his spirit power in less than ten seconds.
Although he had created a new spirit ability, its flaws were too obvious. Thus, Ye Lan did not give it a name. The development of his self-created ability was back at square one. His initial idea was probably the correct one. Once successfully developed, it wouldn't matter even if the spirit power consumption was massive, because manipulating external spirit power particles wouldn't consume the spirit power inside his body.
Moreover, the initial idea was for spirit power particles to influence air molecules, rather than converting spirit power into an impact force to affect the air, as he had just tried. Ye Lan discovered that even with his outrageous control over spirit power, when it came to converting it into a shockwave to influence the air, he found it difficult to achieve a perfect "parting the air" effect, only an approximation. This was another reason for the extremely high consumption.
After thinking through the irrational aspects of his previous attempt, Ye Lan cast it aside, unwilling to waste any more energy on a flawed path. Instead, he began to focus with single-minded dedication on sensing the spirit power particles outside his body once more, attempting to control them.
(End of Chapter)