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*****
Three years had passed since the last Continental Advanced Soul Master Academy Elite Tournament.
Lin Dong had already cultivated to Rank 44, while Ye Luochen was at Rank 45.
As time marched on, Ye Luochen was on the verge of being overtaken by Lin Dong.
Although Su Wen had long anticipated this, he hadn't expected it to happen quite so quickly.
In terms of sheer combat strength, even though Ye Luochen had received personal instruction in the way of the sword from Chen Xin, he was only able to fight Lin Dong to a draw.
On this matter, Su Wen had the greatest right to speak.
Having personally accompanied his own martial soul from its weakest state to its peak through successive metamorphoses, his own perception was the clearest, his mastery over his martial soul was the most meticulous, and his development of it was the deepest.
Under these circumstances, even without a Super Douluo for a teacher, Lin Dong remained entirely focused on practicing his spear, wholeheartedly condensing his own spear intent. Consequently, the gap in strength between him and Ye Luochen continued to close.
With Su Wen's return, Lin Dong and Ye Luochen gathered the many students of the academy to assemble.
"Very good, Lin Dong. You haven't let your name down," Su Wen smiled and said.
Su Wen was highly satisfied with Lin Dong's achievements.
Lin Dong didn't quite catch the underlying meaning behind Su Wen's words, having no idea what kind of story lay behind his name, but he could clearly hear the praise and recognition in them.
In response, Lin Dong clasped his hands and bowed deeply to Su Wen, saying, "Without Master Wen, there would be no Lin Dong today."
Without the numerous cultivation methods developed by Su Wen, it would have been absolutely impossible for Lin Dong to achieve what he had today on his own.
Su Wen shook his head.
"Your own willpower was the key."
It could be said that Lin Dong was the most successful real-world application of the various cultivation techniques Su Wen had developed.
A thousand-year first soul ring, and a thousand-year second soul ring.
The sheer feedback from just two thousand-year soul rings was incredibly substantial for a Soul Master under Rank 30, granting him a full six ranks of soul power.
Then, for his third soul ring, Lin Dong actually obtained a ten-thousand-year soul ring!
This had already caught up to Su Wen's own record back in the day.
One had to remember that Su Wen possessed a natural talent for spiritual power, augmented by the Illusory Spirit Eye and the coordination of numerous other favorable conditions, before he could barely absorb a ten-thousand-year soul ring.
Lin Dong, however, possessed none of those advantages.
He had not consumed the Yearning Cider Cap, nor did he possess the Illusory Spirit Eye. Instead, using the visualization method developed by Su Wen, he had condensed his own Five Elements Visualization Method, using the power of the five elements to temper his spiritual power. He had remained bottlenecked at Rank 30 for an entire year before finally obtaining his third soul ring.
It could be said that Lin Dong was the absolute harshest when it came to bottlenecking his own rank, even harsher than Su Wen had been back then.
However, during Su Wen's early days, bottlenecking one's rank was mostly a waste of talent. Even if soul power could still be accumulated, it would only accumulate at the rate of one's current rank, and failing to see progress could easily lead to mental slackness.
Now, conversely, staying at a bottleneck allowed one to cultivate the Soul Ascension Method, the Visualization Method, and Body Tempering methods. As long as one could significantly raise the age limit of the soul ring they could absorb within a certain timeframe, it would be highly cost-effective and by no means a waste of talent.
Lin Dong had utilized this principle to its absolute absolute limit.
Bottlenecking at Rank 10, he achieved the feat of a thousand-year first ring; bottlenecking at Rank 30, he achieved the feat of a ten-thousand-year third ring.
"The Five Elements... if I remember correctly, the Five Elements Qilin exists on the Douluo Continent. That is the super soul beast that fits you best. I will find a way to search for it on your behalf," Su Wen said to Lin Dong.
If his memory served him right, the inheritance of the Qilin clan existed on the two smaller continents.
Even if the Five Elements Qilin Ultimate Douluo of later generations was a mutation, a mutation still required a bloodline source.
Perhaps now, twenty thousand years in the past, that specific Qilin bloodline was actually much purer, or the source of their bloodline was still active--meaning traces of the Qilin could still be found on that land.
In short, Lin Dong's performance made it well worth it for Su Wen to personally step in and search for this Five Elements Qilin for him.
He truly possessed the potential to become a god.
After a brief exchange with Lin Dong and the other students, Su Wen announced his seclusion.
He cleared his mind of all distracting thoughts.
Closing his eyes, the Heavenly Book materialized above Su Wen's head.
What manifested this time was Su Wen's martial soul.
The Heavenly Book martial soul.
He hadn't utilized this martial soul in a very long time.
After four long years, he missed it dearly.
Feeling the connection transmitted from the Heavenly Book martial soul--which felt not unfamiliar at all, but rather even tighter--Su Wen's heart stirred.
Another Heavenly Book manifested.
This particular Heavenly Book was not a martial soul, but a materialized equipment item: the Heavenly Book from Su Wen's Heaven and Earth Set.
The two books merged.
The components of the Heaven and Earth Set also manifested one by one. As Su Wen's martial soul integrated into the Heavenly Book, the hierarchy of the entire Heaven and Earth Set underwent a transformation. What was once a parallel relationship now became one of containment.
The Heavenly Book completely contained all components of the Heaven and Earth Set, including the minor world itself. The Heavenly Book bore everything.
Following that, yet another phantom image of a Heavenly Book descended.
This was the Visualization Method.
The phantom image melted into the Heavenly Book.
With the three books merging into one, Su Wen entered a state of deep meditation.
Under this merged state, whether it was the Heavenly Book of the Heaven and Earth Set along with its minor world, or the Heavenly Book of the Visualization Method, both were actively elevating the quality of Su Wen's martial soul.
Over the past four years, the increase in Su Wen's power level had been utterly staggering.
He had directly reached the God Level.
Among his assets, the Heaven and Earth Set represented the power Su Wen wielded--it was an entire minor world, capable of unleashing God-level power when fully mobilized. The Heavenly Book of the Visualization Method represented Su Wen's comprehensions and insights into the world. Although much of it consisted of insights into the laws of the Heavenly Pearl Star, it also contained many fundamental insights universally applicable across the cosmos.
As his meditation deepened, the Heavenly Book martial soul began to undergo an evolution.
Energy gathered around Su Wen's body, forming faint, shimmering halos.
Upon closer inspection, one would discover that all of this energy originated from Su Wen's martial soul, the Heavenly Book.
The Heavenly Book released strands of power, gathering outside Su Wen's body.
The halos condensed, simultaneously drawing in the heaven and earth elemental energy from the outside world.
A vortex formed.
At the exact moment the halos were about to condense into physical reality, a massive influx of heaven and earth elemental energy poured in, blending together with Su Wen's own soul power into the halos.
The colors of the halos began to shift.
White, yellow, purple...
Very quickly, they transformed into black.
At this moment, Su Wen's other soul rings had also manifested one by one.
Purple, Black, Red, Black, Black, Black.
These were Su Wen's six original soul rings.
That's right, there was only a single red, hundred-thousand-year soul ring, while the highest among the remaining ones were merely ten-thousand-year soul rings.
However, the four black soul rings among them were profoundly deep. If one looked closely, every single one of them was undergoing a transformation.
No, it wasn't just the four black soul rings; the purple of Su Wen's first soul ring was also continuously deepening.
During his four years on the Heavenly Pearl Star, Su Wen had constantly been nurturing his rings' spirituality. It was only because his martial soul had been sealed that the effects of this nurturing had failed to manifest.
Now, as Su Wen released his martial soul, the nurturing effects on his soul rings' lifespans began to show themselves.
And this manifestation was terrifyingly abrupt.
Within just a few breaths, the deep purple of the first soul ring transformed into black. At the same time, this black color continued to change, growing increasingly profound until it gleamed with a dark luster.
The black of the second, fourth, fifth, and sixth soul rings was undergoing a simultaneous transformation.
Among them, the changes to the fifth and sixth soul rings--which originally possessed the highest lifespans--were the most conspicuous.
Su Wen's fifth soul ring originated from the Void Silver Moon Tapir, which originally had a lifespan of forty-five thousand years, while his sixth soul ring came from a sixty-thousand-year Dark Devil God Tiger.
Silver patterns began to spread across one of the black soul rings, while gray patterns rippled across the other.