Chapter 20: Yan's Training Path (Part 2)

This approach allowed Yan to engage in more creative endeavors. By separately honing his control over fire and earth energies, he could blend them to create magma with higher temperatures, hardness, or explosive properties. This would allow him to alter the effects of his soul skills, offering a variety of tactical options.

By compressing and focusing the flames to increase burst speed or freely altering the shape and area of magma for automatic defense, Yan could achieve different combat effects.

You Chen categorized these approaches into two training paths: "Property Alteration" and "Form Alteration."

Mastering both paths deeply could even lead to the creation of original soul skills, giving the Flame Lord a distinct advantage in soul skill innovation.

According to information You Chen had from the original story and records from the Spirit Hall about the Super Douluo level, understanding and controlling the essence of one's martial spirit was a key factor distinguishing true strength and a prerequisite for further advancement.

By encouraging Yan to delve deeply into this aspect, You Chen was essentially paving the way for Yan's future. If this foundation was solid, reaching the Titled Douluo rank would be a much smoother journey compared to other soul masters.

However, You Chen cautioned against planning too far ahead to prevent his disciple from becoming overly ambitious. His current focus on enhancing Yan's speed was meant to address his shortcomings.

To compensate for the lack of speed using the control over fire and earth elements, You Chen envisioned a "Gundam-style jetpack."

Of course, in this fantasy world, such a name made little sense, so You Chen dubbed it the "Flame Thruster."

By using precise control over fire and earth, Yan could create a controllable booster on his back.

With this Flame Thruster, Yan could gain flight capabilities typically reserved for Titled Douluo and a select few flight-capable soul masters, even at a relatively low soul master level.

However, flight and sustained hovering, requiring continuous fire blasts, would consume a significant amount of soul power, making it a last-resort tactic.

The most versatile use of the Flame Thruster was in battle, allowing for sudden acceleration, deceleration, and quick directional changes.

This unpredictability in speed was even more challenging to counter than constant high-speed movement.

As Yan's strength increased and his soul power became more robust, he could evolve into a high-speed flying artillery.

"A mobile flying artillery," was You Chen's envisioned endgame for Yan.

To achieve this, You Chen's choices for Yan's second and third soul skills seemed misguided to outsiders.

Even when selecting the most suitable soul beast ring, not everyone could create a soul skill entirely based on their personal vision and intent.

This process, where a soul master influences the creation of a soul skill through their will, is known as "Self-Designed Soul Ring" or "Self-Designed Soul Skill."

The most crucial requirement for a self-designed soul ring is having mental strength far beyond the average person's.

Without exceptional mental strength, even maintaining clear thought while absorbing a soul ring is challenging, let alone influencing the creation of a soul skill with one's intent.

Higher soul ring ages increase the difficulty of maintaining clear thought during absorption.

At ten thousand years, soul rings can even impart mental shocks from the soul beast, raising the difficulty significantly.

This underscores the rarity of the adaptive soul rings You Chen obtained from the system. They not only offered pure energy and adaptable ages but also lacked additional mental shocks. Without these, You Chen might not have perfectly constructed the "Sanctuary of Sacrifice."

To enable Yan to self-design a soul skill by the second ring, You Chen specifically instructed him to remain at the level 20 bottleneck for an extended period to refine his mental technique, "Spirit Dividing Refinement," and enhance his mental strength.

While mental strength can be improved through meditation at a bottleneck, it's naturally not as efficient as at higher levels.

Whether due to Bibi Dong's influence or the common opinions of surrounding teachers and students, rumors of "You Chen leading students astray" were rampant during this time.

After wasting what was seen as Yan's precious cultivation time, and choosing soul rings that resulted in skills seemingly mismatched with Yan's "power attack" type, You Chen's reputation plummeted, with the Spirit Hall Academy echoing with derision.

This set the stage for You Chen's marginalization within the Spirit Hall Academy.

The so-called "useless soul skill" was named "Lava Barrier."

Although a thousand-year skill, its effect was simple: instantaneously erecting a large wall to block damage using soul power. That was all.

In Douluo Continent, where every soul master is categorized into specific types, this was unthinkable.

For a defense-type soul master, such a skill would be appropriate.

But for a power-attack soul master, a soul skill that didn't enhance attack or provide a powerful offensive move was considered trash.

When Yan heard others criticizing his mentor, he wanted to "reveal the truth" and explain You Chen's future plans for him.

But, of course, You Chen stopped him.

Not only because You Chen didn't want his training methods exposed, but also because he understood that even with explanations, most wouldn't comprehend and would continue to disparage him.

You Chen's reputation for "leading students astray" only began to clear when Yan became a Soul Elder and dominated in the Soul Arena.

Whether for the second or third soul skill, You Chen's intent was simple: enhance Yan's ability to construct tangible forms with soul power.

Creating something from nothing and practicing "Property Alteration" or "Form Alteration" was extremely challenging.

Soul power isn't as versatile or easily manageable as chakra.

Even the Flame Lord's inherent talent for enhanced control didn't make it easy.

While the Spirit Hall's library contained similar training manuals, achieving results without years of practice was difficult, which is why original soul skills are rare.

Mimicking pre-existing soul skills from soul rings is a better choice than starting from scratch.

Once Yan fully mastered "Lava Barrier," making it his own even without activating the soul ring, his training in "Form Alteration" naturally made progress.

Once he reached higher levels, the Flame Lord's natural affinity for creating original soul skills would make crafting century or millennium-level skills straightforward.

Thus, abandoning the first few soul skills wasn't a big deal.

The third soul skill also focused on form alteration, named "Yan Prison Cage." It formed a cage resembling a lava demon prison to trap enemies, a powerful control and confinement skill. The complexity of the cage significantly surpassed the second soul skill's shield.

With the second and third soul skills serving as his best teachers, Yan finally embarked on the path of creating original soul skills.

After making some progress in self-designed soul skills, Yan once asked You Chen to name his original skills as a token of gratitude for his guidance.

You Chen gladly obliged, naming the series "Yan's Shaping Magic!"