Douluo: I Can Choose My Own Soul Skills

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Exiting the stream of information in his mind, Old Fisher had already walked over to Ye Lan's side, examining the corpse of the Ancient Beast's Tentacle.

"Spirit Master, you're the strongest I've ever seen! That terrifying sea beast was defeated by you!" Old Fisher wiped the sweat from his forehead, still shaken by what he had witnessed.

"Old man, just call me Xiao Lan. This Ancient Beast's Tentacle was indeed unique—it's a mutated variant," Ye Lan replied, touched by the old man's earlier actions. He hadn't expected a mere fisherman, an ordinary man, to risk his life to help him. So he allowed him to use a more familiar form of address.

"I don't really qualify as the strongest Spirit Master. There are stronger ones lined up all the way from here to the gates of Hanhai City," Ye Lan joked casually.

"Hahaha! Xiao Lan, you're so humble! As far as I know, millennial soul beasts can only be defeated by Spirit Experts. Yet you managed to defeat an Ancient Beast's Tentacle at just rank twenty. If word gets out, you'll become one of the most talked-about prodigies in the Heaven Dou Empire!"

"Old man, don't praise me like that. After all, I fought it while on the ship—that gave me the home-field advantage. If we had been in the open sea, I wouldn't have been able to beat this Ancient Beast's Tentacle," Ye Lan explained the dynamic of advantage and restraint.

"By the way, thank you for the sea salt—it helped me a lot!" Ye Lan expressed his gratitude.

He silently marveled at the brilliance of human wisdom—how even ordinary things could be used to counter sea spirit beasts.

Old Fisher was stunned by Ye Lan's humility and politeness. It was the first time he'd met such a unique Spirit Master.

Most of the ones he had seen in daily life were arrogant and looked down on others.

He also felt lucky that he had been able to help Xiao Lan. Otherwise, it was uncertain whether he'd even be alive right now.

"Old man, go back to the captain's cabin and get some sleep. It's still dark—I plan to absorb the spirit ring now," Ye Lan said.

"I'm not tired, so why sleep? I'll stay here and keep watch for you," Old Fisher replied, unwilling to leave Ye Lan alone on the deck.

The two went back and forth for a while, but Ye Lan couldn't win the argument.

So he told him to grab a stool. The deck was still covered in the Ancient Beast's Tentacle's ink.

If a regular person sat on the floor all night, they'd easily get chilled.

Ye Lan then used eight strands of Blue Silver Grass to suspend himself in mid-air. Since the fishing boat could suddenly rock, he didn't want to risk any accidents while absorbing the spirit ring.

Once everything was ready, Ye Lan extended his right hand toward the purple spirit ring.

In no time, the purple hue merged into the Blue Silver Grass.

This time, the sea of consciousness wasn't golden—it was blue.

The Blue Silver Grass floated within a vast blue ocean. Around it, a massive vortex formed, continuously absorbing the surrounding water.

Yet, the amount being absorbed was vastly disproportionate to the growth of the Blue Silver Grass.

This was because, as an innate rank twenty dual-ultimate martial soul, the Blue Silver Grass was already approaching the upper limit of martial soul quality.

So even such a colossal amount of water-element energy barely affected the fundamental essence of the Blue Silver Grass—Radiant Spirit of Life.

However, with time, the Blue Silver Grass gradually began to undergo subtle changes.

Outside the sea of consciousness, Ye Lan's physical body experienced a stark contrast to the tranquility within.

Every pore on his body began to exude tiny red droplets!

Before long, Ye Lan's entire body was soaked in blood, and the original color of his clothes completely vanished.

The blood-drenched figure continued to emit crimson fountains of blood.

Old Fisher, staring at the blood-soaked youth, clenched his fists tightly. He didn't dare make a sound and could only pray for Ye Lan in his heart.

While Ye Lan wasn't the first Spirit Master to attempt absorbing a millennial-level spirit ring as his second ring since ancient times, all others had died from the effort.

Ye Lan's second spirit ring was around 750 years—still considered a century-level spirit ring.

However, transitioning from century-level to millennial-level spirit rings represented a qualitative leap, placing extreme demands on the body.

Ye Lan had honed his body since he was six years old, coupled with boosts from his ultimate life-element martial soul and whale glue enhancements.

He had estimated that he could absorb a spirit ring of roughly 1,700 years in age—and he wasn't wrong.

This time, the spirit ring he was absorbing was around 1,300 years. Logically, the process shouldn't have been this dangerous.

What made the situation so dire was the sheer abnormality of Ye Lan's chosen spirit skill.

"Blue God's Foresight" was evolving the already-perfect Blue Silver Grass even further!

As the Blue Silver Grass continued to evolve, Ye Lan's essence underwent intense transformation—his cells continuously breaking down and reforming.

It was only because his martial soul possessed the ultimate life attribute that he had the immense life force needed to survive.

Any ordinary person would have died from this level of blood loss.

Amidst the blood fountain, Ye Lan clenched his teeth so hard they seemed about to shatter.

He was enduring cellular-level pain. His soul, overwhelmed by his body's agony, had become a twisted mess.

Just when he was about to collapse, Ye Lan finally sensed a change in his martial soul.

Crack!

It was as if something shattered within the Blue Silver Grass—Ye Lan felt its limitations break.

With that release, the excruciating pain disappeared instantly.

Ye Lan's consciousness finally cleared from the torment.

He remembered hearing that same shattering sound during the absorption of his first spirit ring.

Back then, he hadn't understood what it meant. But this time, after experiencing cellular-level restructuring, he had a new awareness of his body.

He finally realized what that shattering sound represented.

It wasn't a problem with his martial soul—it was the removal of a restriction.

This revelation helped Ye Lan understand why advancing to levels 10, 20, 30, and so on, requires spirit rings.

Only by absorbing a spirit ring can a martial soul continue to grow in level.

That's because martial souls have a cap at each stage—these caps are locked.

Without unlocking that limit, no amount of cultivation or soul power would help the martial soul improve.

And the key to unlocking these caps lies in the bloodline factor of the spirit beasts. The martial soul absorbs both the spirit power and the bloodline factor from the spirit ring.

The absorbed bloodline factor from the spirit beast is transformed into part of the martial soul's own bloodline factor.

Spirit skills are born from the fusion of the martial soul's bloodline factor and that of the spirit beast.

Some martial souls have highly inert bloodline factors. As a result, their spirit skills are mostly derived from the martial soul alone.

Examples include the Seven Treasures Glazed Tile Pagoda and Nine Heart Begonia.

The Seven Treasures Glazed Tile Pagoda has only about a dozen spirit skills, while Nine Heart Begonia is even more extreme—it has fully inert bloodline factors, granting only one skill: group healing.

Other martial souls have highly active bloodline factors. Their spirit skills either originate from spirit beasts or from a blend of beast and martial soul bloodlines.

Blue Silver Grass falls into this category—it has high plasticity.

Martial soul evolution is related to bloodline factors. The bloodline of a spirit beast can stimulate a martial soul's own bloodline.

Each stimulation is effectively an evolution.

This also relates to Ye Lan's speculation about the origin of beast-type martial souls.

If one continues to absorb spirit rings from the same type of spirit beast over generations, the martial soul eventually evolves into a beast-type martial soul.

This happens because the martial soul's bloodline factor is assimilated by that of the spirit beast.

Ye Lan speculated that in every era of the Douluo Continent, the types of beast martial souls that existed varied. Some inert ones may have persisted through generations, while highly active martial souls could continuously mutate into all kinds of forms.

(End of Chapter)