Lu Tianyu shifted his feet again, his hands moving like phantoms, relentlessly attacking Dai Mubai.
"Eight Trigrams Four Palms, Sixteen Palms, Thirty-Two Palms, Sixty-Four Palms."
Dai Mubai's feet gripped the ground tightly, yet the impact still sent him staggering back a foot.
After the attack of the Sixty-Four Palms of the Eight Trigrams, Dai Mubai's body flew backward three meters, crashing to the ground, spitting out a mouthful of blood before fainting.
In fact, Dai Mubai had already fainted before the Sixty-Four Palms of the Eight Trigrams were even finished.
Lu Tianyu felt utterly exhausted after completing the entire set of the Sixty-Four Palms of the Eight Trigrams. He was still in the state of being possessed by his Martial Soul.
If he were to dispel the Martial Soul possession, Lu Tianyu would definitely collapse from exhaustion; practicing soft fist techniques was more physically demanding than practicing hard fist techniques.
At this moment, an incense stick had just burned out, and Li Yusong and Zhao Wuji stared blankly at Lu Tianyu, who was panting heavily in the courtyard.
After a long while, Li Yusong finally reacted and said, "Hurry up and take the child to find Fatty Shao. I think Mu Bai really will be bedridden for half a month."
Lu Tianyu, enduring wave after wave of weakness, turned to look at Zhao Wuji with a questioning expression.
Zhao Wuji then reacted and said, "Congratulations on passing the fourth test. From now on, that is me..."
"Thump..."
Before Zhao Wuji could finish speaking, Lu Tianyu could no longer hold on and dispelled his martial soul possession.
Without the attribute enhancement of his martial soul, Lu Tianyu immediately suffered the backlash from overusing his physical skills and collapsed to the ground unconscious.
Lu Tianyu's unconsciousness, following in Dai Mubai's footsteps, terrified Zhao Wuji and Li Yusong. A two-ring Soul Master defeating a three-ring Soul Master was already unusual.
They both thought that Lu Tianyu had used some forbidden technique to unleash the strength to defeat Dai Mubai, and hurriedly picked up Dai Mubai and Lu Tianyu to seek treatment from the Food-type Soul Saint, Shao Xin.
After examination, it was determined that Lu Tianyu was merely exhausted and otherwise unharmed, while Dai Mubai suffered extremely severe internal injuries.
Although Lu Tianyu had tried his best to avoid Dai Mubai's heart and kidneys when attacking him with the Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms, he had still caused serious damage to Dai Mubai's internal organs.
Zhao Wuji had no choice but to take Dai Mubai to a healing-type Soul Master for treatment, and even then, Dai Mubai remained unconscious for a full five days before waking up.
Lu Tianyu, on the other hand, suffered a backlash from overusing his physical techniques and slept for three days and three nights before recovering.
Thanks to the healing power of the Tiger Leopard Thunder Sound external Soul Bone, he felt his energy and stamina had returned to their peak upon waking.
However, he found himself lying in the same room as Dai Mubai and heard someone complaining outside the door.
"Boss Dai is really useless, he was actually defeated by a Soul Master with only level 30 Soul Power at the second ring. He's been unconscious for three days and three nights and still hasn't woken up."
"Shut up, you fatso, if Boss Dai hears this, you'll be in trouble. But this newcomer Lu Tianyu is also a reckless fool, he exhausted himself trying to defeat Boss Dai."
Listening to the complaints of the two people outside the door, Lu Tianyu roughly guessed their identities.
But the important thing now was that he had woken up, while Dai Mubai showed no signs of waking up.
To avoid embarrassing Dai Mubai, Lu Tianyu could only pretend to be asleep until Dai Mubai regained consciousness before "slowly" waking up.
Then he pretended to be completely exhausted, competing with Dai Mubai to see who could lie down longer.
In the end, Lu Tianyu could only lie down for ten days before he couldn't hold on any longer and could only get out of bed and slowly move around to show that he was about to recover. Dai Mubai lay down for another seven days before he had some strength to get out of bed and walk.
After Lu Tianyu "woke up," Dean Flander specially gathered all the teachers and students of Shrek Academy to welcome Lu Tianyu to join the academy.
He also informed Lu Tianyu that he had been assigned to Li Yusong as a true disciple, since Li Yusong's martial soul was the Dragon Pattern Staff.
Although Lu Tianyu's Tiger Soul Staff was an external soul bone, he deliberately disguised it as a second soul skill.
During this time, Lu Tianyu and Dai Mubai competed to see who could lie down longer, and naturally, Flander's disciple Ma Hongjun and Oscar, the disciple of the food-type soul saint Shao Xin, were responsible for taking care of them.
Therefore, Lu Tianyu became friends with Dai Mubai, Oscar, and Ma Hongjun while lying down.
After Lu Tianyu had "fully" recovered, Flander took him to the Star Dou Great Forest to hunt soul beasts and obtain soul rings.
Flander didn't know that sending Lu Tianyu to the Star Dou Great Forest on his own was a long-awaited training journey for Lu Tianyu.
On the way to the Star Dou Great Forest, Lu Tianyu wore specially crafted weights, and on the first day, he almost didn't finish the distance arranged by Flander.
After resting for a night, he completed the distance Flander had set for him the next day while still wearing the weights. After arriving at Flander's destination, he slept for a while and continued his training energetically the next day.
Lu Tianyu ran hard for nine days while still wearing the weights and finally arrived at the outer edge of the Star Dou Great Forest. To prepare for absorbing the spirit ring, he stopped wearing the weights.
It seemed that Grandmaster had given Flander some special instructions, and after entering the outer edge of the Star Dou Great Forest, he quickly captured a three-thousand-year-old Berserk Demonic Ape for Lu Tianyu.
The innate ability of this type of ape spirit beast is berserk. When using the berserk talent, it can fight opponents two levels higher than itself.
However, it will also exhaust its spirit power and essence blood, leading to its death. In the Star Dou Great Forest, almost no spirit beast is willing to provoke the Berserk Demonic Ape.
This makes the Berserk Demonic Ape an extremely common spirit beast. Flander captured one alive in less than an hour after entering the Star Dou Great Forest with Lu Tianyu.
A three-thousand-year-old berserk demonic ape, if unleashed at full power, could rival a five-thousand-year-old soul beast. However, it couldn't cause any trouble in front of Flander, a level 78 Soul Saint, and was quickly defeated by Lu Tianyu.
After the berserk demonic ape's soul ring condensed, Lu Tianyu sat cross-legged and used his soul power to draw the three-thousand-year-old soul ring to himself
. Then, Lu Tianyu's consciousness followed the berserk demonic ape's soul ring into his martial soul consciousness. The berserk demonic ape's soul ring emitted a wave of soul power
, drawing four light orbs to Lu Tianyu's front. Clearly, it was time for Lu Tianyu to choose a soul skill again. Although there were four light orbs, Lu Tianyu could only choose one.
After the light orbs stabilized, illusory characters appeared above them, from left to right: White Strike, Steel Fist, Eight-Charge Fist, and Eight Gates Formation.
Lu Tianyu's gaze fell on the four illusory characters for Eight Gates Formation and couldn't look away. When he saw Soft Fist and Steel Fist last time, Lu Tianyu wondered if the Eight Gates Formation would become an option for physical techniques in the future.
Lu Tianyu hadn't expected the Eight Gates Formation option to appear so quickly, so he chose it without hesitation.
While the Eight-Strike Fist was indeed incredibly powerful, and if mastered, it would be the bane of all defensive Soul Masters on the continent,
Lu Tianyu was confident that the Eight Gates Formation would allow him to challenge Soul Masters whose Soul Power was no more than thirty levels higher than his own.
If he desperately unleashed the Eight Gates Formation, he was even confident he could fight against Soul Douluos and weak Title Douluos.
Furthermore, the power of physical techniques wasn't limited by the age of Soul Rings; as Lu Tianyu's Soul Power level increased, the power of all his physical techniques would also increase.
However, after receiving the training method for the Eight Gates Formation, Lu Tianyu froze in place. He had initially thought that the backlash would be weakened after the Eight Gates Formation was converted into a Soul Skill, and that there wouldn't be any danger after opening the fourth or fifth gate. But
in reality, the Martial Soul attribute was only the base value for opening the Eight Gates Formation; the stronger the Martial Soul attribute, the more terrifying the power increase after opening the Eight Gates Formation.
In other words, if Lu Tianyu cultivates to the Soul Douluo level, he can challenge a Title Douluo with the Eight Gates Formation.
If he cultivates to the Title Douluo level, activating the Eight Gates Formation would allow him to sweep across the entire Douluo Continent.
However, the side effects of the Eight Gates Formation remain unchanged: the user will die once activated.
Undeterred, Lu Tianyu further studied the inherited memories of the Eight Gates Formation and finally discovered the changes after it became a Soul Skill.
First, Lu Tianyu can directly activate the eighth gate without needing various training steps to fully activate the Eight Gates Formation.
Second, the Eight Gates Formation is now the third Soul Skill of Lu Tianyu's main Martial Soul. The backlash first acts on the Martial Soul, and then the Martial Soul backlashes on Lu Tianyu's body.
In other words, Lu Tianyu's Martial Soul and himself bear the backlash together, theoretically halving the damage and allowing him to survive activating the Eight Gates Formation.
The backlash first acts on the Martial Soul, and then the Martial Soul backlashes on Lu Tianyu himself.
Theoretically, if Lu Tianyu's basic attributes were strong enough, he could even open the Eight Gates Formation without taking damage.
However, possessing the basic attributes to open the Eight Gates Formation without injury is unrealistic. The so-called basic attribute is Lu Tianyu's own physical strength.
Lu Tianyu's biggest headache right now is his physical strength, because his insufficient physical strength often results in backlash from his martial soul.
With his current physical strength, he can only withstand the backlash from opening three gates. If he were to open six gates, he would not be able to withstand the backlash from his martial soul and would die.
Therefore, he should absolutely not use this soul skill unless absolutely necessary, and only use it when he is fighting for his life.
When Lu Tianyu returned to his body's sea of consciousness from his martial soul consciousness space, he found that the soul power in his body had been completely refined and stabilized.
When he opened his eyes, he did find Flander looking at him anxiously. Flander hurriedly asked when he saw Lu Tianyu wake up, "How are you, Xiaoyu? Why did you meditate for so long?"
Lu Tianyu was still somewhat unfamiliar with Flander, and only vaguely explained that he had spent more time studying the soul skill.
When Flander inquired about Lu Tianyu's third soul skill, Lu Tianyu only mentioned its name, omitting any other details about the Eight Gates Formation.
After obtaining his third soul ring, Lu Tianyu and Flander left the Star Dou Great Forest. Flander had intended to fly Lu Tianyu back to Shrek Academy, but Lu Tianyu refused.
Now, Lu Tianyu felt a surge of excitement at the thought that if his physique were strong enough, he could open the Eight Gates Formation without injury.
He secretly resolved to train his physique to be sufficiently resilient, not just to open the Eight Gates Formation without dying.
The mere thought of opening the Eight Gates Formation without dying was incredibly tempting. He recalled Might Guy opening the Eight Gates Formation against Madara. Might Guy
's original strength was only at the Jonin level, but after opening the Eight Gates Formation, his strength instantly soared to a level capable of killing a Six Paths.
The difference between an elite Jonin and a Six Paths was like the difference between a Soul King and a Title Douluo in the Douluo Continent.
In order to gain a strong physique capable of withstanding the backlash from opening the Eight Gates Formation, Lu Tianyu decided to run back to Shrek Academy on his own. This put Flander, a Soul Saint with the ability to fly, in a difficult position. Flander
regretted his impulsive words when he ran from Shrek Academy to the Star Dou Great Forest last time, and now he regretted his decision even more.
However, Lu Tianyu's physical strength had been greatly enhanced due to absorbing his third Soul Ring, and his Martial Soul attribute had increased to 5,300 Dao Power, so he only took seven days to run back to Shrek Academy from the Star Dou Great Forest.
After returning to the academy, Flander retaliated by arranging a large number of training courses for Lu Tianyu, one of which was to train for two hours every three days under Zhao Wuji's gravity Soul Skill.
Other training in physique, physical fitness, Soul Power, and Soul Skills was also not neglected, all arranged so that Lu Tianyu would have ten hours a day to eat, drink, relieve himself, and sleep.
Originally, Flander only intended to get revenge on Lu Tianyu through this method, but little did he know that this arrangement played right into Lu Tianyu's hands.
After trying to cultivate in Zhao Wuji's gravity-enhanced soul skill's gravity field for two hours, Lu Tianyu felt that it was simply his ideal training ground.
He immediately asked to cultivate in Zhao Wuji's gravity soul skill for two hours every day. Zhao Wuji was still holding a grudge against Lu Tianyu for causing him to inhale watermelon pulp into his trachea when they first met.
Upon hearing Lu Tianyu's request, he immediately agreed, while also threatening Lu Tianyu that if he dared to skip class, he would add an extra hour.
The next day, Lu Tianyu deliberately skipped class, and Zhao Wuji kept his word and added an extra hour of gravity soul skill training.
From then on, Lu Tianyu began a frenzied training regimen, getting up at six o'clock every morning for two hours of soul power training.
From eight to eight-thirty was time for washing up, getting dressed, and eating breakfast, and from nine-thirty to twelve-thirty was time for receiving theoretical lessons from the duty teacher.
Lunchtime was from 12:30 to 1:00, followed by meditation and soul power cultivation from 1:00 to 3:00 PM.
Gravity soul skill cultivation took place from 3:00 PM to 7:00 PM, followed by dinner from 7:00 to 9:30 PM, focusing on physical and mental training. From 9:00
to 11:00 PM, evening meditation and soul power cultivation continued. After completing soul power cultivation, there was half an hour for showering and laundry, and the remaining time was for Lu Tianyu to rest and sleep. After
half a month of this structured cultivation, Zhao Wuji was the first to succumb to the strain.
(End of Chapter)