After sensing the anomaly from the Black Book, Wang Chen immediately threw the soul bone out of his mind and quickly sank his consciousness into the depths of his soul to see what had happened.
Wang Chen deeply understood where his true foundation for survival and strength lay. The clan's gift of a mere thousand-year soul bone—
Even if it were a ten-thousand-year or hundred-thousand-year soul bone—it would not compare to a single page of the Black Book.
Moments later, Wang Chen stared at the Black Book in utter shock, for the originally damaged book had recovered slightly.
Although the change was subtle, for Wang Chen—who viewed the Black Book as his most important treasure and had memorized its every detail—even the smallest alteration could not escape his perception.
Seeing that the Black Book had recovered a little, Wang Chen could not help but feel overjoyed.
After all, the Black Book had once been so severely damaged that only its most basic function—recording—remained.
Did this now mean that some of the other lost functions had begun to return?
Even if those mighty abilities like world traversal were still unusable, regaining even a small function would be excellent.
After all, just the most basic recording ability was already so powerful—it allowed Wang Chen to fight across realms.
If not for the fact that Soul Masters of the Douluo Continent had so few truly powerful techniques,
then in another world—say, one of high martial arts or immortal cultivation—
Wang Chen would have already used the Black Book's recording power to learn countless formidable martial arts and Daoist techniques.
It could only be said that the world of Douluo was too weak, which limited the potential of his golden finger—the Black Book.
Filled with anticipation for the Black Book's new function, Wang Chen immediately began to examine what new abilities it had gained.
His consciousness merged into the Black Book as he explored every corner of it.
Soon, he discovered something that hadn't existed before—a crystalline mark composed of many mysterious inscriptions.
Delving deeper, Wang Chen quickly understood what this crystal mark was for.
Its function was simple: by injecting spiritual power into it and placing a recorded skill from the Black Book within,
it could deduce and perfect that skill.
As for how far it could develop or improve a skill—that depended on the potential of the skill, its level of completeness, and the strength of the spiritual power infused.
In short: the more powerful and complete the skill, and the stronger Wang Chen's spiritual power, the more terrifying the transformation would be.
Realizing this, Wang Chen began to think carefully about which ability he should invest into the crystal mark for refinement.
After a moment's consideration, what came to mind first was his meditation technique—his cultivation method.
The cultivation methods of the Douluo Continent were extremely crude; they didn't even involve the Eight Extraordinary Meridians. They could barely be called proper techniques.
Tang God-King could dominate the world with nothing but Xuan Tian Gong—that alone showed how weak the Continent's methods truly were.
Naturally, Wang Chen had always been dissatisfied with his own cultivation method. Over the years, he had thought about improving it.
But improving a cultivation method was exceedingly difficult. The human body's meridians were countless,
and every channel and circulation pattern was interconnected—
it wasn't something one could create just by knowing about meridians and energy flow.
Even if one managed to create a new method, it would still require countless human trials to verify its safety.
And after discovering flaws, one would need to modify and supplement it—each improvement also requiring new trials.
Thus, creating a complete cultivation method required enormous time and effort.
Many sects' cultivation manuals had only become perfected after dozens of generations of gradual refinement.
Wang Chen was still young, his knowledge accumulation insufficient, and he also had to balance his own cultivation—
how could he have had time to reform a method?
Therefore, he had never spent time improving his technique.
Most importantly, even if he forced himself to, he wouldn't dare use it on himself.
If something went wrong and he suffered energy deviation, it would be disastrous.
Thus, upon learning of the Black Book's second function, Wang Chen immediately decided to input his own technique into the crystal mark for refinement.
No sooner thought than done—and he also wanted to test this mysterious power.
He poured a vast amount of spiritual power into the crystal mark.
As his spiritual energy flowed in, the mark emitted a faint light.
Clearly—Wang Chen's spiritual power was… a bit weak.
After completing the infusion, Wang Chen placed his cultivation method into the crystal mark.
The Black Book could record any skill Wang Chen saw—and his own techniques could be input directly without that.
With both the technique and spiritual power injected, the crystal mark immediately revealed its powerful effect.
Moments later, the faint light on its surface faded, and a newly transformed cultivation method was transmitted into Wang Chen's consciousness.
This new method incorporated the Eight Extraordinary Meridians, its complexity far surpassing that of Wang Chen's old meditation technique.
As Wang Chen rejoiced, the immense consumption of spiritual power left him feeling extremely fatigued, and his consciousness returned to his body.
Enduring the exhaustion, he placed the floating soul bone back into its box, stored it in his soul tool, and immediately fell asleep.
While Wang Chen slept soundly—
In the main hall of the Wang family patriarch's residence—
Elder Wang Yuan, the chief judge of the family's grand competition, had arrived to make his report.
He had come to inform the patriarch that an extraordinary genius—unseen in decades—had emerged in the clan,
and to request increased resource support for the boy's future growth.
Wang Yuan bowed respectfully. "Patriarch, this old one has something to report."
Wang Yan did not immediately respond.
Unlike usual, he was not lying leisurely on his recliner but was seated upright at his desk, his expression serious and far from his typical calm demeanor.
Recently, the First Prince Xu Tiannan and the Third Prince Xu Tianshi had joined forces against the Second Prince Xu Tianyu,
causing the Second Prince—whom Wang Yan supported—to suffer several setbacks.
Naturally, as a supporter of the Second Prince, Wang Yan's mood was far from good.
He was currently pondering how to counter the alliance between the First and Third Princes.
He had thought of two possible methods:
One was to secretly undermine the alliance between Xu Tiannan and Xu Tianshi.
After all, the two weren't truly united—they were only cooperating temporarily because of the Second Prince's power.
The other was to win over princes who had no claim to the throne, offering them promises and benefits to oppose the First and Third Princes together.
Of the two, Wang Yan preferred the latter.
Because neither Xu Tiannan nor Xu Tianshi were fools—they both knew that only by allying could they resist the Second Prince.
Thus, even if Wang Yan played small tricks in secret, they would simply turn a blind eye.
Therefore, the second method was more practical.
Even though those other princes had no right to vie for the throne, they still held certain power.
If recruited, they could at least bolster the Second Prince's influence.
At that moment, Wang Yuan remained silently bowed, waiting for the patriarch's reply.
After a short while, Wang Yan glanced at him and spoke in an even tone, "Speak. What is it?"
Wang Yuan straightened and said, "Reporting to the patriarch—this time's family competition's first place went to Wang Chen.
He defeated Wang Teng, who had three soul rings, with only two rings of his own.
Such brilliance is a rare sight in decades. With time, he will surely achieve greatness."
Wang Yuan did not continue to ask directly for the patriarch's favor or resources.
Such requests were the privilege of superiors, not subordinates.
If he overstepped, it would be seen as disrespect.
Thus, he only reported Wang Chen's excellence and left the decision to Wang Yan.
Wang Yan's interest was piqued.
For a Great Soul Master to defeat a Soul Elder—that kind of leap in power was something only those with top-level martial souls could normally achieve.
He sighed slightly. In this generation, the direct bloodline of the Wang family numbered over a hundred—far more than the previous two generations.
And among so many people, a true genius had finally appeared.
Recently, his focus had been entirely on the Second Prince's faction, leaving internal clan affairs mostly to the elders.
Still, a talent like this deserved proper cultivation.
From his storage-type soul tool, Wang Yan took out a token and tossed it to Wang Yuan.
"Grant him the Young Master Token. From now on, Wang Chen's monthly allowance is increased to one hundred thousand gold soul coins.
"All living, training, and resource privileges are to be raised to the highest tier.
Assign him a team of guards at his command. That's all—you may go."
Wang Yuan accepted the token, bowed again, and slowly withdrew from the main hall.
Back at Wang Chen's home—
He slept straight through from day until night before slowly waking up.
When he opened his eyes, his stomach growled.
He had no choice but to go out and eat, after which he quickly returned to his room, eager to test the new cultivation method refined by the crystal mark.
Sitting cross-legged, Wang Chen closed his eyes and began to circulate the technique.
Once he started, he couldn't stop. The efficiency of this new method was at least twice that of the old, inferior one.
More importantly, the quality of the soul power it produced was far higher.
For a Soul Master, the quality of soul power was of utmost importance.
The reason it was so difficult to break through to Soul Saint or Title Douluo was that both required extremely pure and condensed soul power.
To break through to Soul Saint, one must transform their soul power into liquid form.
To reach Title Douluo, it must be further condensed into solid form—a soul core.
This was why those who had used too many pills to artificially raise their level early on often found it nearly impossible to reach those higher realms.
With this new cultivation method, Wang Chen's future breakthroughs to Soul Saint and Title Douluo would undoubtedly be far easier than for others.
After an hour of cultivation, fully feeling the benefits of the new technique, Wang Chen opened his eyes—unable to suppress the smile at the corners of his lips.
Excitedly, he thought:
"With this new technique, I can maintain an extremely high cultivation speed at least until the Soul King stage.
For a top-tier genius, that's about four to five levels a year—
But with this, I might even reach ten levels in a single year.
This new method is incredible—its efficiency far surpasses the old one!"
Touching his chin thoughtfully, Wang Chen named his new cultivation method Tongmai Gong—"Through-Vein Art," symbolizing speed and smooth progress.
After cultivating it for a while longer, he began once again to study the Black Book.
A thought struck him: could he input the Tongmai Gong into the crystal mark again for further refinement?
If a single deduction had made it this strong, what would multiple refinements achieve?
Wouldn't he be able to soar to the heavens and stand shoulder to shoulder with the sun?
Excited beyond measure, Wang Chen entered the Black Book again and placed the technique back into the crystal mark.
Moments later, his face turned pale, and he smiled bitterly.
"I was too naive… how could there be such a good thing? My spiritual power is still too weak—
I can't bear the strain of another deduction."
He shook his head to ease the headache caused by the mental exhaustion,
then, like a child with a new toy, enthusiastically began testing the crystal mark with other lesser skills.
After a full night of experimentation, Wang Chen had consumed much of his spiritual power but successfully refined several smaller, less taxing skills—
fully mastering the workings of the crystal mark's deduction and perfection ability.
He also discovered that many of his own skills had extremely low potential—
especially those tied to his soul ring system, whose limitations made further improvement nearly impossible.
On the other hand, technical skills such as spear techniques and close combat methods showed tremendous growth.
Through the crystal mark's refinement, Wang Chen had elevated them to a new level.
Now, Wang Chen could truly be called a master of combat technique—
in this regard, only veteran Soul Masters with decades of battle experience could compare to him.
Because the night was short and some skills consumed vast amounts of spiritual power,
Wang Chen hadn't yet refined them all and decided to wait until his energy recovered.
He got off the bed, stretched, and loosened his stiff muscles.
Sunlight streamed through the window, illuminating the once-dim room.
Looking at the rising morning sun outside, Wang Chen felt an unprecedented sense of joy.
With the activation of the Black Book's second function,
he felt as though he had been reborn—his potential elevated to an entirely new level.
Retracting his gaze, Wang Chen turned toward his room—
and only then remembered the soul bone he had completely forgotten.
He smiled wryly. The Black Book's new function was simply too powerful.
Compared to that, a mere thousand-year soul bone wasn't even worth his attention.
After all, he had no intention of absorbing it anyway.
He wouldn't even consider anything less than a hundred-thousand-year soul bone.
Just then, a sudden thought flashed in his mind:
Why did the Black Book suddenly begin to recover faster?
Previously, its restoration had been so slow it was almost imperceptible.