Xiao Ming Blacksmith Shop.
Su Ming looked at the batch of Mysterious Iron left by the man with a hint of surprise.
"If I have to melt this Mysterious Iron in as well, it will indeed require a bit more effort."
He thought for a moment and began proportioning the metals.
A qualified blacksmith must be able to reasonably mix metal ratios to forge the most suitable alloy.
He set the furnace to its maximum efficiency. Fierce flames roared, and the terrifying high temperatures baked his body, turning his skin bright red.
He threw the Mysterious Iron onto the forging platform above. In just a short time, it became red-hot, with black impurities clearly visible inside.
Su Ming's Body Martial Soul is attached to him. His first spirit ring shimmered, his body began to enlarge, transforming into a Diamond Body.
He swung the hammer, striking the Mysterious Iron repeatedly.
Afterwards, he took out a piece of Refined Iron and fusion forged it with the Mysterious Iron.
During this process, even his Diamond Body was glowing red, as if it too was enduring the scorching of the fierce flames and undergoing repeated internal baptisms of spirit power.
The physical pain was fed back to his Martial Soul. Similarly, the restorative effect of the Martial Soul being tempered by spirit power was also transferred to his main body.
The body's enhancement, in turn, affected the Martial Soul's strength, simultaneously enabling a new cycle to begin.
Repeating this process created the possibility of infinite growth for the Body Martial Soul, assuming the body's own limits weren't considered.
"Diamond Body!"
Normally, the body has its limits, especially since Su Ming's body wasn't fully developed yet.
He was actually somewhat afraid of excessively feeding back the Diamond Body state to his true body, worried it might affect his development.
Only in low-intensity forging would he cancel the Diamond Body, using the most basic form of the Martial Soul for body tempering. In high-intensity forging, he would only utilize the first half of the cycle, tempering only the Diamond Body, which counted as developing this spirit skill.
He would first elevate the Diamond Body.
Once his main body matured, he would then digest the Diamond Body, slowly integrating it into his own body, transforming it into his body's normal strength.
Douluo 3 Era.
"Just like this!"
Su Ming borrowed power from the past, drawing upon the power of the Body Martial Soul from twenty thousand years ago.
He did not transform into the Diamond Body. Instead, leveraging his current state, he practiced the latter half of the process that the Su Ming of the past had not performed.
Feeling his main body being continuously tempered, every cell greedily digesting the energy Deposition, his very soul seemed to be purified, immersed in a cradle, enjoying the nurturing from his body.
The soul is the essential characteristic of a living being.
Losing the body is acceptable, as long as the soul remains, one can still seize another body.
But the soul is ultimately rooted in the body, relying on the body to nurture the spirit.
Now, with all of Su Ming's cells in a state of extreme comfort, his soul was also nourished, growing robustly. Converted into mental power, it meant his mental power had increased by a full five points today!
"Five points a day, that would be over fifteen hundred a year," Su Ming mused.
Of course, he was joking.
First, the body has limits; he couldn't overtrain too early. He didn't want to become a Hulk like A Ruheng. Second, there was the cost. The tempering of his body and the enhancement of his spirit were both bought with Contribution Points. He consumed high-grade ingredients daily, depositing vast amounts of energy within his body, and today, he had also indulged in a meal of heavenly treasure-level nutritional supplements.
Such improvements definitely couldn't be achieved daily.
Once a month was already the limit.
Even so, that would still mean a sixty-point increase in mental power over a year. Coupled with the mental power honed through daily accumulation, his yearly increase would reach triple digits, which was terrifying.
The rate of mental power increase accelerates with realm. At this stage, just after awakening his Martial Soul, increasing mental power by triple digits in a year was downright monstrous.
Moreover, it wasn't just his mental power improving; his physical fitness far surpassed his peers, and his spirit power growth hadn't lagged either. It was an all-around overwhelming advantage.
"It's still not exaggerated enough. After all, I'm only enjoying the benefits of the Body Martial Soul. Even A Ruheng, who cultivated the Body Martial Soul to its extreme, couldn't compare to Tang Wulin's Golden Dragon King Bloodline."
If you're bad, just practice more.
So—
"Gotta practice more."
If it were right after awakening his Martial Soul, Su Ming wouldn't have had this much drive or conviction. But after his first spirit skill allowed him to summon the power of two of his past selves, he finally gained confidence.
The bonus from the Trinity Martial Soul Fusion Skill was too high.
If the Body Martial Soul could feed back its power to the main body, why couldn't the Martial Soul Fusion Skill do the same?
"The power I'm borrowing isn't from just anyone in the river of time; it's my own power, perfectly suited for me. In other words, my Trinity Martial Soul Fusion Skill is a Self Martial Soul Fusion Skill."
"By fusing the Body Martial Soul and the Spirit Power Martial Soul, I can fully digest all the enhancements from the Trinity Martial Soul Fusion Skill state into my own body. This, in turn, drives further improvement of the Trinity Martial Soul Fusion Skill, which is then converted into my own power, creating a cycle."
This path of constant positive feedback and strengthening immersed Su Ming.
He turned off the mental power testing device.
On the screen displaying the mental power value, the number '200' gradually faded away.
As the era developed, cultivation in the spirit master world became more comprehensive. From the primitive period of Douluo 1, relying solely on Martial Soul aptitude and groping in the dark, they began exploring cross-level spirit ring absorption and gradually started the field of the body. Among these, inherently advantaged Martial Souls like the Body Martial Soul stood out, and the Body Sect, composed of such Martial Souls, enjoyed a period of great prominence.
Later, after Spirit Ice Douluo created the Spirit Soul system and established the Spirit Transmission Pagoda, spirit masters entered the Spirit Soul era. To fuse more and higher-aged Spirit Souls, they began exploring the field of mental power.
Everything proceeded exceptionally smoothly.
Because Spirit Souls were simply too perfect.
A Spirit Soul gave all spirit masters an aptitude in the mental attribute!
Even for non-mental attribute Martial Souls, the process of fusing a Spirit Soul stimulated the spirit master's own mental field. A Spirit Soul that could reside in the Sea of Consciousness was naturally the best tool for a spirit master to develop their mental field.
This was Su Ming's summary of the Douluo Continent's development over these twenty thousand years.
Spirit Souls were the key to exploring the mental field!
"Over this past year or so, my spirit power and physical fitness have improved noticeably, but my mental power improvement has lagged behind."
A seven-year-old spirit master with two hundred points of mental power—a result that would make even Shrek Academy exclaim 'monster'—was considered 'lagging' in Su Ming's words.
"Mental power at the Spirit Communication Realm can support a purple Spirit Soul. I should have entered the Spirit Ascension Platform long ago, but redeeming it with Contribution Points is too expensive, so I waited until now."
Su Ming was helpless.
He remembered his teacher, Zhang Tianyang, saying it would take at least half a year, at most a year. But he ended up exceeding the deadline by over two months, even including his closed-door cultivation.
Thankfully, he had kept his training schedule full during this time, so it wasn't wasted.
"Teacher, your disciple is here to see you with a surprise."
(End of Chapter)